


The Magician's Son

by lindenmae



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Noir, Circus, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-09
Updated: 2012-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-30 19:18:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindenmae/pseuds/lindenmae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is 1946. Ira Eames is wealthy, a war hero, and a conman. Ireland McCullough was the son of a circus magician and madly in love with a young acrobat.  Ireland McCullough disappeared in 1939, the same year Ira Eames enlisted in the Royal Navy to help fight the Second World War.</p><p>Ira Eames and Ireland McCullough are the same man, a man who's spent the last eight years of his life trying to escape the confines of his past and the overwhelming affection he's always felt for Arthur Petrov, afraid of the terrible kind of love that consumed Arthur's twin sister Mal and the intruder Dom Cobb. But now, nearly five years since he last saw her, Mal has fallen from the tightrope and Eames is on a train from Paris that will take him home.</p><p>But he's not the only passenger.  Also on this train are Robert Fischer, an Interpol agent who wants Dom for a decade old murder, and a young woman named Ariadne, with dreams too big for the era she lives in. Eames must decide if he's going to help Robert Fischer make his arrest or protect a man he can hardly stand while he prepares Ariadne for the magical world she's joining.  All the while he thinks back on the defining moments in his life, all of which revolve around Arthur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Magician's Son

**Author's Note:**

> Non-explicit sexual content - underage (Eames 15/ OFC) (Arthur 15/ Eames 18) and of age, mild misogyny, canon character death

 

“The most important thing you’ll ever learn, Ireland my boy, is sleight of hand. Remember that. It can get you anything you want and people won’t even know you’ve taken it,” Owen McCullough said to his son. His voice as serious as when he warned the boy to keep out from under foot when the men were raising and striking the tents, or when he coached him to keep his eyes always open, to notice absolutely everything.  
Ireland, because he was six years old and still Ireland then and still would be for months until little Arthur Petrov would try and fail to form those complicated syllables on an unpracticed tongue, watched his father roll a coin across his scarred knuckles, the dark and puckered skin pulling with each rise and fall of his fingers and then –

 

         Gone.

 

Ireland’s father held his hands palms out to his son, silver coin nowhere to be found. Owen glanced away with his one good eye and Ireland looked and there was Arthur watching them from a few feet away, curiosity warring with wariness in a desperate battle for control of his expression. Owen beckoned and Arthur dutifully trudged across the grass to stand below their seats on the steps to their caravan.

  
“Open your mouth, Artie lad,“ Owen said, his thick Irish brogue made even harder to understand by the way the corner of his lips remained permanently turned down. But Arthur understood and held his mouth wide, so wide that Ireland thought he could almost see the vocal chords that everyone was so worried didn’t work. Owen began to reach two rough fingers towards Arthurs face, but Ireland beat him to it, reaching in and pulling the coin from behind Arthur’s tongue.

  
“Haha! Ireland! That’s it! That’s my boy!” Owen clapped Ireland on the back as the boy placed the coin into Arthur’s chubby palm, the warmth of the toddler’s beatific smile nearly as satisfying as the gravel-voiced approval of his father.

  
Nearly everything Ireland would go on to do, including shedding the pesky syllables of his given name, was ultimately driven by the desire to make Arthur smile. He was three when the twins were born and he didn’t remember any single moment of that day very clearly, just fuzzy images of the adults rushing back and forth across the camp in a mad dash to hurry up and wait, and that when dawn broke that day there had not been an Arthur and when the moon rose that night there was. Everyone had been so excited that there was a boy, like Ireland wasn’t even there, but truthfully he was happy for a boy as well. There had been six Petrov girls, the youngest of them ten years old already, and they all liked to pinch Ireland’s cheeks and dress him up and now there were seven with Amelie. Ireland was excited because he _knew_ that Arthur would have to be his friend, because no one else would protect Arthur from his sisters.

  
He’d needed Ireland’s protection even more when Amelie said her first word and began speaking in full and fast sentences almost immediately afterward and Arthur didn’t speak at all. Ireland began collecting Arthur’s smiles from the very first time he’d wrapped all ten of his spit-sticky baby fingers around two of Ireland’s, thicker because he was three years old and felt so much bigger than this tiny and squishy thing, giggling and blowing him spit bubbles, but he’d unconsciously made Arthur’s smiles a near constant mission when the days kept passing and Arthur kept silent. It didn’t end when Ireland crouched in front of Arthur and smoothed the wrinkles from his tiny brow and promised Arthur could call him anything he wanted or nothing at all, if only he wouldn’t cry. And Arthur stamped his fat little foot in the dirt and spat out one angry syllable.

  
“Eem!”

  
By then Ireland was almost eight years old and only his mother ever said his middle name aloud, because it was once _her_ name and everyone only used surnames when they were talking about the Petrov girls because it was easier to lump them as a group than remember them individually. No one called Amelie and Arthur “Petrov” though, maybe because they were the youngest, maybe because of the way their dark curls glowed in the sunlight or because they were four years old and still couldn’t be told apart until Amelie opened her mouth.

  
People talked and they didn’t think the children listened, but Ireland did and then he ran to his father to ask him what it meant when they said Arthur might be slow or that he might be dumb. And Owen told him that slow didn’t mean stupid and dumb just meant quiet. Ireland just nodded because _he_ knew that Arthur wasn’t stupid and if he was dumb then so what, because Amelie talked enough for the both of them. But Arthur wasn’t dumb either and he proved that toddling after Amelie, frustration blooming pink on his cheeks as he tried to get his twin’s attention over her incessant prattling, until finally he barked out, “Mal!”

  
Ireland knew just how smart Arthur was even then, could see the gears turning behind his wide, dark eyes, knew Arthur was aware of the effect that one word after four years of silence would have on a group of gossipy adults. Just because he didn’t speak didn’t mean he didn’t listen and he shocked their little world into forgetting that his sister’s name was ever more than its middle syllable. So the same happened with Ireland, though not as quickly. As soon as Arthur said his first word, he’d quit relying on Mal to _know_ what he was feeling and thinking, and begun to tell her in whispers and all the while Ireland did everything he could to keep Arthur’s attention until finally, _finally_ Arthur sought him out instead of watching him from afar and said, “Eem!”

  
Ireland should have known that of anyone, it would be Arthur who listened and remembered what his mother called him when she was upset and being stern but more often when she was speaking to him softly and brushing his hair away from his face.

  
“Okay, Arthur. You can call me Eames too,” he’d said, just to get another smile. He was only the second person Arthur had ever spoken to and it made his heart swell so much that he thought it would burst. He kept it to himself, buried deep and safe in the secret place where he stored Arthur’s smiles, but once spoken Arthur refused to take it back and in more time than it took for Amelie to become Mal which was still no time at all, Ireland became Eames

  
So it feels rather odd then, when Robert Fischer takes a seat across from him in the beverage car of the moving train, tapping his fingers against a worn brown folder and calls him “Mr. McCullough.”

  
“Done your homework, I see,” he says nonchalant, to mask his unease. He’s been Ira Eames for eight years, and while he’s done nothing to hide his roots from anyone, it feels wrong to hear that name come from a relative stranger’s mouth.

  
“I’ve been following you long enough to find some useful information,” Fischer says, ordering vodka on the rocks from the waitress when she comes by.

  
“And what brings you to me now? I don’t dare believe it coincidence we end up on the same train.”

  
“Because you’re too smart for that, aren’t you? No, Mr. Eames, or, I’m sorry, do you prefer Mr. McCullough? I think you and I may very well be heading to the same destination.”

  
“Eames is fine, Agent. It’s still my name after all.”

  
“Given to you by your mother, one Vivienne McCullough neé Eames. Married one Owen McCullough when she was just eighteen, and gave birth to a son when she was twenty-one. I have pictures. Your mother is quite a lovely woman.”

  
“That she is. I’m sure you’ve found that she left the lap of luxury to become a carny in your research there…” Eames arches a brow and leans back in the leather booth. He doesn’t enjoy volunteering information about his past to an Interpol Agent, but if he seems like he’s bored with the direction of the conversation he may be able to throw Fischer off his game. Eames doesn’t know what it is the agent wants yet after all.

  
“Interesting, that. Such a lovely girl with such a wealth of opportunities chooses a man who pretends to do magic tricks for a living. She was part of society and he was nothing more than a grifter, not your average pairing.” Fischer flips open the file and Eames is faced with a grainy black and white photo of his father in a hospital bed, bandages covering nearly every inch of his body except one eye. In his mind he replaces the hospital gown with a violet velvet overcoat and a shiny satin top hat and it’s a younger version of the man who, nightly in Eames’s memory, weaves spells and plays tricks that make whole audiences believe in magic again.

  
“Owen McCullough, Irish-born, burned beyond recognition in a bar fire when he was fifteen, not that there was anyone to claim him. Must be one hell of a man, to land a woman like your mother looking like an overcooked sausage.”

  
Eames frowns. He’s well aware of his father’s story and he’s also well aware, in a way Robert Fischer never could be, of the way his mother would look at his father like the scars weren’t there, even though she’d never known him without them. Their story is really very simple as far as love stories go. Vivienne, a beautiful girl in the prime of her life with too many suitors to count, went to the circus expecting to be entertained and nothing more. The circus magician was wrapped in bandages beneath his suit, a large hat pulled low on his head, only one blue eye visible to the audience beneath the shadow of the hat’s brim. He’d needed a volunteer and he pulled Vivienne into the ring and she’d say he performed real magic down there amongst the sawdust and the peanut shells, and true or not, she was back with a suitcase and a handful of notes and gone away with the circus when it left in the night. She married the magician without knowing if he’d ever been handsome, and in all of Eames’s memories, his mother never looked at his father with anything but fondness and love. Fischer can try to sully that all he wants, but if there’s such a thing as true love, Eames knows his parents have had that.

  
“Have you ever been in love, Agent Fischer?”

  
“No, I can’t say that I have.”

  
“Well then, that right there is why you can’t understand.”

  
Fischer looks amused. Eames still has no idea where this conversation is going, and talk of love is only serving to depress him. He wasn’t happy to be on this train in the first place and with every word that comes out of Fischer’s mouth, Eames finds himself falling into a blacker mood.

  
“What about you, Mr. Eames? Have you ever been in love?”

  
“Unfortunately. Fell in love once and never managed to pull myself out of it. Consider yourself lucky.” He thinks of the simple ring he keeps in a pocket over his heart and doesn’t think about Arthur. He spends a lot of time not thinking about Arthur.

  
“I consider myself luckier than Amelie Petrov Cobb anyway,” Fischer says, like he’s been at all sly this entire time.

  
“So that’s your angle then. You want to know about Mal.” Eames is put off to find that he’s actually surprised. He’s spoken with Fischer once or twice before this, left for him witty and frustrating notes more often than that, entertained by Fischer’s dogged interest in him, but he doesn’t see what Interpol could possibly care about a carny’s death, no matter how famous she might have been.

  
“Well, Agent Fischer, I wasn’t there. Far as I know Mal fell from the tight rope. Accidents happen.” His throat gets tight because he’s not certain that’s how it happened at all, but certain loyalties have been bred into him from birth.

  
“I want to know about Dominic Cobb, actually.”

Eames pulls out a cigarette and Fischer congenially strikes a match to light it. Eames takes a moment to study him through the veil of smoke, trying to gauge the man’s intentions through his high cheekbones and icy eyes. Fischer’s good though and keeps his face carefully blank. He would have been more enjoyable to taunt if he’d evershow any emotion, Eames thinks ruefully.

  
“He’s a git and a pretty boy. Anything else?” He doesn’t bother to turn his head when he exhales and neither does Fischer, staring straight into the blue-gray smoke.

  
“He’s wanted as a suspect in the 1936 murder of a man named Cobol. If it happens he killed his wife as well, then so be it.”

“I’m not going to give you Dom Cobb, Fischer. I may not be very fond of the man, but I’m no turncoat.” Eames can hear his voice get hard, little bits of Ireland poking through Ira’s laconic demeanor.

  
“Even if he killed your Mal?”

  
“Mal was only ever her own until she met Dom. She was never mine and I never wanted her. She was my family, but unfortunately so is Dom Cobb, so I’m afraid I’m of no help to you.”

  
“Maybe not,” says Fischer, “or maybe you still will be.” He gets up then, gathering his papers back into their brown binding and leaving his vodka untouched, the ice melting and making it spill over the edge of the glass.

  
Eames is left brooding, the taste of his own drink gone with the melted ice. He doesn’t like Dom, never has, but he wasn’t lying when he told Fischer he wouldn’t give him up. It’s the unwritten code of carnies everywhere: Everyone is family even if they’re terrible.

  
…

  
Dom Cobb showed up on an otherwise normal night, blended in with the crowd at first, just another overgrown boy in a shabby suit, trying to be someone other than himself. Eames never would have thought about Dom Cobb again if he’d left with the last of the stragglers, still mooning over the spectacle of the show, unsure if their boring lives could hold any meaning for them now that they’d seen real _magic_. But Dom Cobb didn’t go home. He was drawn to the show and by the end it had sparked something inside of him, a fire that couldn’t be put out. Or he was running away. That’s how it went for everyone who wasn’t born into the life.

  
Eames was helping break down the tents when he saw him, a blonde head that didn’t belong, semi hidden by the lion cage. He was close to Eames’s own age, maybe a little bit older, watching the twins practice their tumbling in the tall grass with wide eyes. Eames, himself, had been sneaking glances in their direction at every chance, but the idea of this intruder invading on such a private moment, a moment that belonged to _them_ when he wasn’t one of them, angered Eames. He’d pass it off later as an overzealous attempt at chivalry, the twins were only thirteen after all, but in reality Eames was sixteen and full of hormones and the idea of anyone looking at Arthur in the wrong way made his blood boil. Rationally he knew the boy was looking at Mal, who with puberty had become something of an angel in appearance, but Eames was awkward and gangly, waiting for another growth spurt to even out his limbs, and hardly ever patient enough to be anything resembling rational.

  
“Oi,” he shouted, dropping his mallet and running in the direction that the blonde head had suddenly disappeared. Everyone looked up in wonder, startled by Eames’s outburst, but soon they were all back to work, shaking their heads at just another of Eames’s antics. But the twins dropped out of their handstands and chased after Eames with curious looks, excited to see what had him barreling across the campground.

  
Eames might have lost the other boy if he’d chosen a better hiding place, but he ended up with his back against the bars of the very lion cage he’d been cowering behind, with one of the cats’ giant claws snagged in his jacket. The boy was rightfully trembling to be caught so close to the big cats, but the one that had him was no more than an overgrown housecat so he was hardly in any real danger.

  
“Lola, let go!” Even at what should have been the most awkward time of her life, Mal acted like she was a step above the rest of them, still commanding everyone like it was her right to be heard. Of course Lola listened to her, releasing the boy with just a small nudge of her massive snout against his shoulder. Eames would have laughed at the terrified expression on the boy’s face if he wasn’t still trying to play tough, especially with Arthur watching.

  
“Who’re you?” Eames demanded, purposefully making his accent as rough as possible.

  
It varied, how he spoke, on what accents he could pick up from the nights’ crowds, where they were and whether he wanted to blend in or not. Sometimes, like this time, he spoke with a rough tongue like his father, nearly unintelligible but his intent loud and clear. His father’s accent was the easiest for him to emulate, but when he was just talking, when it was just him and Arthur and he wasn’t playing a character, Eames sounded like his mother if she’d had a drink or two and didn’t think anybody but Owen could hear her. When he wasn’t trying, Eames sounded like a proper Brit with a heavy tongue who spent too much time trying to decipher a rich, Irish brogue.

  
“My name’s Dom, Dom Cobb. I just, I was looking for Saito?”

  
“Not what it looked like to me. Saito wasn’t out there doin’ somersaults.” Eames advanced on Dom who was visibly shaken.

  
“Oh, leave him alone, Eames. He’s one of us, can’t you see?”

  
“You don’t know anythin’, Mal. Go put some clothes on.” She pouted but didn’t leave, tugging at her shorts to hitch them up higher. The quick glance Dom shot her and the blush in his cheeks had her beaming again immediately, all nasty thoughts of Eames forgotten. “Insufferable tart,” Eames muttered.

  
“Mal,” Dom breathed reverently and that did nothing to endear him to Eames. Life wasn’t an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

  
“Stop being such a crab, Eames. He has done nothing to you.” Mal tried to edge past Eames and closer to Dom, swishing her hips like she’d seen the townie women do, like she was old enough to handle the male attention she was already starting to attract.

  
“Stupid little girl,” Eames hissed, because he was frustrated and his temper was volatile and Mal made him insane more often than he could stand her. “Go get Saito or get my da. Get someone, but get out of here.”

  
He was expecting another argument or one of the nasty comments she was so fond of spitting his way. They were family, always would be, but Eames’s mother said that the hormones weren’t doing favors for either of them and lately they could barely tolerate being within a few feet of each other. So Eames was surprised when she huffed, obviously irritated, but flounced away, making sure Dom was given ample opportunity to appreciate her developing curves. Eames glanced at Arthur, who shrugged and dug his hands into his pockets, barely taking his eyes from Dom. Arthur looked more curious than anything, but Eames didn’t like it either way. Lately he preferred Arthur look at nothing at all than anyone other than him, and he didn’t understand it and he didn’t like it, and he didn’t like Arthur’s bright eyes on Dom, curious or not.

  
“You go too,” he snarled and Arthur smirked at him - like he did when he knew a secret, which was often with the way the adults tended to forget that Arthur was just quiet and not deaf - but he ultimately walked away, back to the deflating big top. Eames already figured this was one secret Arthur wasn’t going to tell him later. More bad news for this Dom character as far as Eames was concerned.

  
Eames crossed his arms over his expanding chest, proud of the way his budding muscles had begun to bulge when he flexed. He had weight on Dom, if not height, but Dom didn’t seem eager to fight. Instead he kept his back to the wood and his eyes on Eames, and they were assessing if not openly defiant. Eames couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief when Arthur came back, Owen walking steadily behind him, one large hand resting heavily on top of Arthur’s head, and Yusuf, the animal trainer, huffing along last. Arthur beamed, obviously happy with himself for coming back first. Eames was silently glad it was Arthur too, because his bravado was waning, but the sight of his father bolstered it. Yusuf’s only concern seemed to be for his cats as he immediately hastened to the cage with no attention spared to the intruder.

  
“What’s this then, Artie? “ Owen rumbled.

  
“Eames thinks he’s scary,” Arthur laughed, tilting his head so that he could share a knowing smile with Owen.

  
“He was hidin’ and starin’ at the twins like some sort of pervert!” Eames’s pronunciation tended to degrade in his father’s presence and when he was upset.

  
“I wasn’t! I swear! I just, I need to speak with Mr. Saito and I saw them and… they’re amazing.”

  
“Aye, they are that, our wee doves. I’ll take you to Saito, then, young…”

  
“Dom. Dominic. Cobb.”

  
“I see,” Owen mused, understanding dawning in his eye. Owen’s face was still wrapped from the night’s show, his hands still enveloped in soft, black leather gloves, every inch of scarred skin hidden except for the one good eye. It was an effect that served to terrify and enthrall with the atmosphere of the tent at his back. Owen McCullough may once upon a time have been an imposing man on his own, inspiring shudders of fear because of the breadth of his shoulders rather than the destruction of his skin. It was clear Dom didn’t know whether to cower or stand tall in Owen’s presence. The costume clearly made him nervous, but no one could truly be afraid of a man who could make a sullen child smile so brightly. Arthur’s smiles were always disarming and often misleading and Eames liked to believe that no one else could decipher them quite as well as he could. Eames saw his father catch Yusuf’s eye and nod, but he was being addressed before he could question it too deeply.

  
“Best you step down, Ireland. Dominic here won’t be goin’ anywhere anytime soon.” And with that and no other answers, Eames was stuck with Dom Cobb and the first blooming bud of jealousy in his heart.

 

“Why do you hate Dom?” Arthur asked him much later, when it was close enough that Eames had begun to count down the days until his eighteenth birthday.

  
They were curled up in an empty box car, trying to escape the oppressive heat of the afternoon. Arthur interlaced his slim fingers with Eames’s, Arthur’s surprisingly more calloused from gripping the trapeze and sliding over rope as he practically flew above the audience. There were nights of tears and bloody bandages in their shared tent, Dom’s too by then, when Eames would ice Arthur’s hands and press tender kisses to the blisters to get Arthur to quit his soft sobbing over the pain.

  
“Don’t hate him,” Eames gritted through his teeth, because it was a lie. Dom had a way of appearing earnest and honest when he was lying through his teeth and Eames seemed to be the only one who could see right through him.

  
“Mal’s going to marry him.”

  
“Mal’s head is full of butterflies.”

  
Arthur looked down and then away, his curls that had gone to pitch when Mal’s had lightened under the sun falling over his eyes. Eames itched to reach out and brush them back, but he was hesitant, always hesitant with Arthur, as if the boy was breakable. Eames knew he was going to break a lot of things when he broke out of the life, but he wanted to keep Arthur whole for as long as possible.

  
“I think he loves her,” Arthur said softly, and anyone other than Eames would have missed it, but Eames was always listening.

  
“It’s infatuation. They wouldn’t know love if it fell out of a tree and hit them on the head.”

  
He didn’t want to have this conversation. Eames had seen the forlorn way Arthur watched Mal and Dom together, like he was being left behind. Eames couldn’t tell the boy that’s exactly what was happening. Just like when Mal had raced past Arthur with her words, she was growing up far faster than he was, and this time she’d forget him entirely. There were no whispers to be shared over her budding relationship. There wasn’t room for them both in Dom’s arms. There should have been plenty of room for Arthur within the circle of Eames’s arms, but Eames was selfish even if he thought he was being noble, and Arthur was going to end up alone.

  
“That’s not what love is supposed to be, Arthur. They’ll swallow each other whole, just watch, and there’ll be nothing left of either of them. That isn’t what you want, is it?”

  
Arthur looked up at Eames then, dark eyes sharp and momentarily cold. “No,” he mumbled softly, but Eames felt pierced to the gut. Then Arthur pulled his hand from Eames’s grasp and curled away from him into a pile of forgotten hay.

  
…

  
The rumble of the train doesn’t soothe Eames like it once did. Instead, it only dredges up old aches, both emotional and physical. He surreptitiously rubs at his hip as he heads back to his cabin, like the dig of his fingers into skin can do anything to quell the phantom pains of a fractured pelvis, poorly healed. He feels far older than twenty-six at times like this; slow moving and melancholic like an old man that’s seen the world pass him by. The sleeper compartment is cramped and uncomfortable but it’s private, and he sinks gratefully onto a bottom bunk once he’s inside.

  
Fischer has him thinking, about his past, his future, the two lives he’s worked so diligently to keep separate. He could give Dom up and that would be one thorn out of his side, but he knows he won’t, as tempting as it is. Even if Dom did kill Mal - and Eames doesn’t really believe that, despite the niggling itch of doubt Fischer has planted in his mind - loyalty is the one trait ingrained in him by his childhood that he hasn’t been able to shrug off like an old coat. He wouldn’t be a young man with the gait of a senior citizen if he could have left that unfortunate little character flaw behind.

  
He contemplates opening a window, but thinks better of it. There’s ice on the ground, and the only thing worse than the shaking would be the cold. Instead, he drapes his jacket over the bunk above him and lays back, unconcerned by wrinkles, and tries to sleep. He doesn’t normally dream so it will be at least eight hours that he won’t have to remember either. But of course sleep doesn’t come easily. He tosses and turns for the better part of those eight hours he so desperately needs, and ends up with an arm behind his head, watching the stars stay still in the sky even as the train speeds across the terrain. The same stars that he mapped as a boy, and the same ones that watched overhead as he nearly drowned in the Atlantic. Little pockets of the past keeping a nightly vigil over him.

  
He wishes he’d made an effort to finish his drink, and he thinks about heading back and maybe picking someone up at the same time, but the thoughts are only half-hearted. His sore bones would protest any type of movement and this close to his destination no liaison would be discreet enough nor would there be any satisfaction. He knows better by now, after years of seducing dark haired boys that are too familiar, and bright, buxom girls that don’t look like anyone he’s ever met. Not a one of them has ever made him feel a thing except nostalgia and loss and the ache in his heart, the one the war didn’t create, only grows bigger.

  
…

  
The very first one had been a busty townie girl with hair as red as the flames of the campfire behind Eames as he’d slipped away from the tents. He was fifteen and restless already, unhappy and desperate and confused. The man outside the pub didn’t care enough to check his age even though Eames didn’t look eighteen and the man at the bar was just as lazy, pouring Eames a pint without a second glance. He doesn’t remember the girl’s name now, isn’t sure he even got it, but he remembers her. She had a sweet smile and crooked teeth and a layer of baby fat persistent in her cheeks. He remembers he called her bonnie and maybe she never corrected him.

  
She let him buy her a drink and then another, probably not of age herself, and then she let him kiss her clumsily outside the pub, fingers numb and fumbling as he tried to light a cigarette. She said she’d been at the show, that she’d seen him under the lights, that he could have her if he wanted to. It was quick and dirty and not quite what he’d expected, but he’d put a rosy blush in her cheeks and when he kissed her again, she didn’t push him away, so it must have been alright.

  
He could have been happy with it, could have reveled in the idea that some rite of passage had been achieved, that he was now a man, but when he came back to camp, disheveled and distracted, Arthur was waiting. Eames’s parents had a truck and their own caravan, but Eames was honestly more comfortable in his own tent outside. It was only recently that Arthur had come to call it his own as well, because Mal was changing in a way his sisters wouldn’t explain to him and needed her space. Arthur had shared the tent with Eames before, because of nightmares and bedtime stories and Eames’s never-ending quest to keep Arthur smiling. For a fleeting moment though, with Arthur’s eyes on him, and all the accusations in them, Eames resented the loss of his space.

  
“ _What_ ,” he snapped, brushing past Arthur and refusing to look back. He didn’t need to, either Arthur couldn’t read Eames’s mood or he didn’t care, and he caught up within just a few steps.

  
“Where were you?”

  
“None of your business,” Eames growled, and he really, honestly wanted, for maybe the first time, Arthur to go away.

  
He could feel Arthur’s eyes on him, feel the judgment in them, and it made his hackles rise because he shouldn’t feel guilty, but he did. He felt guilty because Arthur, Arthur who was twelve and already so beautiful and graceful, was upset and it was Eames’s fault. Arthur had been the focal point of his whole world for so long, Eames couldn’t ever hope to think rationally when it came to him. All he could do was storm away and reach the tent first, not even sure why he was so angry.

  
“You smell like roses,” Arthur said then, so softly Eames nearly missed it and he _never_ missed anything Arthur said.

  
“So?” He hissed, and it was meant to be dismissive but his voice cracked at the same time that his wall of self-righteous anger crumbled.

  
Arthur stayed silent, but Eames didn’t need him to say anything to know everything he was thinking. Maybe Arthur was being selfish, wrinkling his nose at the scent of perfume on Eames’s skin, because it meant that for a few hours, Arthur hadn’t been at the forefront of Eames’s thoughts, he hadn’t been the most important thing in Eames’s universe. It was the selfish behavior of a little boy who’d been nothing but doted on his entire life and _it wasn’t fair_ , but fair didn’t matter, because when Eames turned around there were tears magnifying Arthur’s eyes in the moonlight but going unshed and he was frowning so hard, at that moment it was impossible to imagine Arthur had ever been happy.

  
“I’ll wash,” Eames conceded, not giving in, not entirely. Something was changing, _they_ were changing, the sickening constriction in his chest as he watched Arthur waffle between a shy little boy and a commanding young man made that undeniable. Eames wasn’t just Arthur’s protector or his best friend anymore, but he didn’t know _what_ he was.

  
He waited until Arthur disappeared into their tent and the pressure in his chest eased some, before stripping off to his undershirt, the smell of roses suddenly nauseating. He crouched in front of the horse trough, thankfully still half full, and dunked his head and shirt at the same time. He’d wash for real in the morning, but for now even the mildew smell of stale water would be better than the townie girl’s perfume. He hung his shirt on the line in front of his and Arthur’s tent and crawled through the flap, quietly as he could manage, but Arthur wasn’t asleep. The younger boy curled into Eames’s front, burying his face, still cherubic with baby fat, into Eames’s chest. It was still innocent when Eames wrapped his arms around Arthur’s shoulders just like he’d done a million times before, but they could both feel it shifting, and it wouldn’t be innocent for much longer.

  
“Don’t do it again, okay?” Arthur’s voice was muffled, but Eames understood. He always understood.

  
“Yeah, okay,” Eames whispered and he wasn’t conceding anything this time. There wouldn’t be anyone else, not while he slept this close to Arthur, even if they began to sleep on opposite sides of the tent after that.

 

 

 

Dom was the catalyst, ultimately. Arthur’s envy of his sister and Eames’s jealousy over Arthur, came to a slow burning but scalding head once Dom invaded their space and it hurt them both and scarred them for life. What scared Eames about the all consuming passion between Dom and Mal was that he imagined he could give himself up like that just as easily, but he didn’t _want_ to let that happen. He couldn’t destroy himself for another person even if that person was Arthur. It didn’t occur to him that the kind of love he wanted, the kind of love his parents had, could be his, because he was young and full of feelings to the point of bursting and he didn’t see a healthy way to navigate them. And being young, he believed wholeheartedly that if he ran way, his feelings wouldn’t follow.

  
…

  
Eames is dragged from his reveries, exhausting as they are, by the sounds of a scuffle outside the door to his cabin. He tries to ignore it, going so far as to wrap the bunk’s stiff pillow around his head, but the thump of a body against the wall jars him.

  
“What’s a sweet lil’ thing like you doing travelin’ all by your lonesome?”

  
“Please, just leave me alone.”

  
“There’s no fun in that is there, girlie? Nobody wants to be alone.”

  
Eames isn’t much of a gentleman though he’s pretended to be, but he’s not a man that can sit by while a girl is harassed by thugs and there’s something he can do about it. He’s too stiff to roll off the bunk gracefully, but he can work with that in this situation. He gives into his limp and smacks his lips, already feeling the clipped consonants of the girl’s American accent on his tongue.

  
“What’s the problem out here?” He asks jovially as he slides open the door, limping heavily into the middle of a group of three men and one impossibly tiny girl. There’s no way she could defend herself if they attacked her, but Eames is impressed to see the defiance in her comely face.

  
“Ain’t nothing but a conversation, Yank. I suggest you mind your own business.”

  
The lead thug leans heavily into Eames’s space, taller than him but thinner and reeking of liquor. The other two seem more along for the ride than anything else. If Eames can take out the leader, there won’t be any fight from his boys, and even aching as he is, Eames is not worried.

  
“Doesn’t sound much like any conversation I’ve ever had, friend. _I_ suggest you move on and leave my sister alone like she asked.” Eames chances a glance back at the girl, proud to see her immediately mask any surprise at his ploy - quick little fox.

  
The leader sniffs and goes to shove Eames out of the way, but Eames grabs the man’s wrist with quick fingers and smiles.

  
“This the way you treat your veterans, friend?”

  
The man sneers and then falters, because no, of course not. The war in the Pacific’s only been over for a year now formally, not counting the skirmishes that continued to break out before the official word had been broken. Eames takes another step just to bring attention to his limp and the thug’s face falls completely.

  
“Ain’t no problem here,” he mutters. “C’mon gents.” They shuffle back down the aisle, heads hung. Eames will keep his eye out for them again, but for now he’s just glad none of the occupants of the other compartments have come out to see the cause of the commotion.

  
“It’s bad form to lie about being a veteran,” the girl says, crossing her arms over her chest and shifting so that her back is to open air instead of the wall. She doesn’t trust Eames either and rightly so.

  
“Why do you assume it’s a lie?” He slips comfortably back into the posh British accent he’s managed to keep up for the last four years. The girl’s mouth only gapes a little.

  
“I wonder.”

  
“Children these days, no manners.”

  
“I’m twenty,” she huffs, irritated, and it’s Eames’s turn to gape. “Are you really a veteran?”

  
“I am. Honorably discharged from Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. The limp is real as well, before you ask.”

  
“Oh,” the girl’s confidence falters a little. “I, um, I’m Ariadne,” she says, thrusting her hand out for Eames to shake. She’s far from proper, wearing dungarees and what might be a young boy’s shirt, but Eames thinks he likes her better for it. “Thank you… for what you did.”

  
He smiles, this time with warmth, completely unlike how he’d looked at the thug. “Nothing to it, pet. Do you have a place to sleep?”

  
“Despite what just happened, I’m not stupid. I’m not about to go into a strange man’s cabin. I can fend for myself from now forward, thank you very much.”

  
“I don’t doubt that,” Eames says, chuckling, backing into his cabin but leaving the door open. “And thank you for so graciously declining an invitation I hadn’t yet extended. But there are four bunks in this cabin and just the one of me, and I’d truly hate to come upon you in peril again. I may not get there in time.” He doesn’t really want to scare the girl, but there is some chivalry left within him and he’d rather her be scared than hurt. He’s not sure why he feels so strongly about that except that her dark curls and doe eyes remind him of his past mistakes and he doesn’t want to make them again.

  
He can see Ariadne’s will wavering, so he decides to give her that last little push over the edge. “The name’s Eames, Ira Eames, and you’re not really my type, so you’ve nothing to worry about there.”

  
“Oh. Well,” she smiles brightly then, once Eames has gripped her small hand in his. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Eames.”

  
She follows him into the cabin and curls up on the bunk opposite the one he’s claimed. He lies back down with little regard for her, obviously favoring his hip since she’s already seen his limp.

  
“Would you tell me about it?” She asks, making an abortive gesture at his hip.

  
He pillows his head on his arm, turning so that he can watch her. “Don’t see why not. I enlisted in the Navy when I turned eighteen and was honorably discharged when I was twenty-one. The ship I was serving on took a torpedo from a U-boat. I was below deck, helped get a lot of good men out and into the lifeboats, but didn’t get out quite fast enough myself. Slipped and ended up pinned, broke my pelvis. Almost drowned.”

  
“How did you survive?” Ariadne looks enthralled, the innocent optimism of the young overpowering her earlier defiance.

  
“It’s a blur mostly. I just knew I couldn’t go like that. There were… things I wasn’t ready to leave behind. Now you tell me something, Ariadne. Where is this train taking you?”

  
Ariadne blushes and looks away. “The circus. Saito’s Inception. I don’t know where it is, but I’m going to find it.”

  
She hesitates like she’s embarrassed, but Eames nods for her to go on with piqued interest and though her blush deepens she continues.

  
“I was studying physics in Paris. I wanted to be an architect, but no one took me seriously. I guess it didn’t help that there’s so much rebuilding to do. But I had a professor who told me about a place where I can build anything I want and no one will question me just because I’m a girl. I have to find it.”

  
“Really,” Eames drawls, rolling onto his side and rising up onto his elbow. “What was this professor’s name?”

  
“What, do you think you’ll know him?”

  
“You have no idea how many people I know, dear Ariadne. Money will make you a lot of fake friends and I have a lot of money.”

  
“Miles Cobb?”

  
Eames shouldn’t be surprised.

  
“Well, it seems you’re in luck, sweetheart.”

  
“Why?” She narrows her eyes at him, still wary of everything he says, but he can tell she’s warming up to him. He has that effect on people.

  
“That’s where I happen to be heading myself.”

  
“And you’re going to tell me that you know how to find it.”

  
“Of course I do. I don’t need your golden thread to find my way home.”

  
The optimism is back, the twinkle in her eye that belies her youth.

  
“Home?”

  
“That’s what I said.”

  
“Saito’s Inception is your home? Wow. I can’t decide if that’s wonderful or horrible. I mean it’s every kid’s dream to run away and join the circus, but if you were already part of it… did you dream about running away to join the rest of the world?”

  
Eames shrugs, uncomfortable but trying to cover it because she’s hit the nail on the head on the first try. He _hated_ the circus. Oh, he understood the awe he could see in the faces of children and even adults after they left the campground, but he didn’t share it. He’d stopped believing in magic when he was still young, even when it was right in front of his face.

  
“I can feel the circus in my bones. I’ve tried to leave, but she’s never let me go. Here, let me show you a trick.”

  
“Oh, you’re a magician?”

  
“No, I’m just an overgrown lad with a bum hip and too much money to know what to do with. But my father, my father is the greatest magician that has ever lived.”  
He can hear the reverence in his own voice, the wisps of nostalgia that he didn’t mean to put there. He’s going mad or the idea of home is pulling at him harder than he thought. But the truth is the truth no matter how he plays it and the truth is what he spoke.

  
“The trick, Ariadne,” he says, shifting so that he can push to a seated position without bothering his hip too terribly.

  
She’s a bright girl. He has no doubt if this was a different time she would have finished her courses with flying colors and been one of the greatest architects the world has seen, but there is a clear wonderment in her that the world hasn’t managed to stomp on, even with the second great war just over and the walls put up before her in school and society. She’s the kind of person the circus thrives on. She’ll tell him that she doesn’t believe in magic, but a part of her will wonder just how Eames knows her card. He’s not planning to amuse her. No, if this girl is going to join his circus then she needs to be prepared. There is real magic in Saito’s Inception and with every inch of track the train leaves behind, Eames can feel it building in his body.

  
“Pick a card,” he says and she does, smirking because this is the oldest trick in the book. He plays along at first and lets her think she’s the one indulging him.

“Pick another card,” he says, when the first trick is over and she isn’t wowed. He smiles at her, innocent, and she smiles back, bored. He cuts the deck and shuffles it, lets the cards fly through his hands just to see her eyes follow the movement and widen, and then he lays the deck on his thigh and lifts the top card. It’s the Jack of Spades.

 

“Is this your card?”

  
Ariadne’s eyebrows screw together and she looks at him very seriously, obviously confused that he could fail at such a mundane trick. “No.”

  
“Really. Hmm, well let me try again. This one?” The Two of Diamonds.

  
“No, that’s not it. Some magician you are,” she says good-naturedly.

  
“Well, I am not sure what I’ve mucked up here.” He stares at the cards as if they’ve betrayed him then begins to fan his face as if the temperature in the tiny cabin has changed. “It is getting awfully humid in here, sweetheart, would you mind cracking a window for me? There’s a love.”

  
Ariadne doesn’t look warm at all, but she complies, quickly shooting off the bunk and over to the window, where she gasps.

  
“Oh! How did you _do_ that?” She cries, looking from the window to Eames and back again, her eyes nearly popping from their sockets.

  
“Magic,” is all Eames says, laying back again, his eyes on Ariadne’s card stuck to the outside of the glass, flapping in the wind but not flying away. The Ace of Hearts. That’s a sign if there ever was one.

  
…

  
Despite wanting to, practically itching to get out at every town they stopped in, Eames didn’t leave before his eighteenth birthday because he’d never known anything else and he didn’t know where to go. At eighteen he would be of legal age anywhere that he felt mattered and so he waited impatiently, but he felt it was worth it because he turned eighteen in 1939 and the world gave him a place – the world went to war. Eames spent months before he turned eighteen perfecting a fake birth certificate that said he was someone else, and this is what he presented when he enlisted. Ireland McCullough ceased to exist and Ira Eames was born. It wasn’t that Eames needed a place to belong, he already had that. He didn’t enlist for fraternity or out of loyalty to the lands of his parents’ births. He was born on the road somewhere in England, he knew that, but he’d grown up in every country on the European continent. He didn’t feel English, but Ira Eames was English because the family Eames was English, and so it was to the British Crown that he pledged.

  
What Eames wanted from the Navy was freedom, a way out of a life that was suffocating him. Circus life may have been fine for his parents and for Dom Cobb and for Mal and _Arthur_ , but it wasn’t enough for Eames. It wasn’t easy to leave, but he was young and hard-headed and convinced it would have been harder to stay. And he wasn’t trained to be anything other than a grifter and a magician and the circus already had one of those. In the end no other decision felt right. He stole away in the night like the runaways that came to join them and he didn’t look back. He couldn’t, because he would have seen Arthur watching him walk away with a frown and fisted hands.

  
On the night that he left he feigned sleep for as long as he could stand, until the camp was quiet and he was certain that Arthur and Dom were asleep. He’d packed only some clothes and nothing else because he was sure he could make it to the harbor by dawn. He was well past the edge of camp when he realized he was being followed and he cursed himself for not paying more attention.

  
“You’re leaving.”

  
He sighed and turned around. He’d wanted to avoid this, terrified that this goodbye would make it too hard to go.

  
“You knew it. Don’t act surprised.”

  
“I thought you’d say goodbye.”

  
“Arthur…”

  
He was standing there in only a threadbare pair of long johns, clearly having wasted no time to dress in following Eames from the tent. Even his feet were bare.

  
“I hate you,” Arthur snarled, but there were tears in his eyes. He was still so young, younger than Eames had felt at fifteen. His façade of anger was broken by a single tear slipping down his cheek.

  
“ _Arthur_ ,” Eames broke and dropped his bag, pulling Arthur into his arms. He still hadn’t grown into himself fully yet, but he was bigger than Arthur and the younger boy fit perfectly against him, burying his face in Eames’s neck.

  
“You could come with me,” he whispered into Arthur’s hair while the other boy shook against him, but he knew it was an empty invitation. Arthur was the star of the circus. He was needed. And he wouldn’t leave his sister, because she hadn’t left _him_ yet.

  
Arthur turned his tear stained face up and Eames could see every beautiful detail in the moonlight and he reacted the way he’d been too afraid to before. Not even this could keep him here, and it may have been cruel, but something inside him had broken once he’d crossed the edge of the camp and he didn’t know if he would ever be coming back. So Eames kissed Arthur and it was nothing like the clumsy kisses he’d given to the townie girl three years before. It wasn’t perfect or even graceful, but it was full of feeling and it had him hardening against Arthur’s flat stomach.

  
He wondered for a long time afterward if he’d made a mistake by laying Arthur down there in the grass and letting out years of pent up emotion all at once like a dam breaking, so that Arthur could have drowned in the flood of everything Eames had ever felt for him from the moment he was born. He thought on it the most clearly in the moment that he realized _he_ was drowning in the sea. It was a terrible metaphor, because Arthur lived and Eames had accepted that he wasn’t going to. He saw Arthur’s face in the inky black water, as he tried to break the surface without the use of his legs, as his body began to go numb in the Atlantic’s embrace. He resigned himself to death and his last thoughts were of Arthur, and somehow with one last burst of energy, his fingers found air.

  
They were picked up by another ship, Eames and all of the men he’d helped get to safety, and they were treated for hypothermia there, but Eames had a busted pelvis and had to be taken to an actual hospital. He ended up in the country he was named for, and he noticed, however dimly, that the hills were just as green as his father had promised they would be. The doctors said that his pelvis had already begun to heal and it was too dangerous to re-break it. They said he’d walk again but he wouldn’t run and he wouldn’t dance and he wouldn’t fight. The war was over for him. It was 1941 and he was just twenty-one years old. He didn’t mind being discharged, because he hadn’t fought for any particular reason. He’d seen enough to realize how foolish he’d been, but there was still a world left to see once he could get out of his hospital bed. That was why when a sweet-faced nurse asked if he wanted to go to the circus, he said no.

  
Millie was an angel and pretty in a plain way and Eames flirted with her to pass the time, but she wanted to get married and he wasn’t ever going to settle down. He had no proof that Inception had found her way over the Channel, but he knew it just the same. It wasn’t that he didn’t miss his family, or that he didn’t want to see them, it was that he didn’t want them to see him like this. He wasn’t ready. But it wasn’t up to him. Millie and the other nurses took the more mobile patients to the show and Eames stayed behind, half asleep in his hospital bed, until he felt someone staring at him quite intently. He opened his eyes and sighed.

  
“Mum.”

  
His mother looked down on him fondly, pushing his hair back from his forehead just like she’d done when he was a kid and it had hung nearly to his shoulders. Now it was cut short, but it was still comforting and he wasn’t embarrassed to turn his face into her hand.

  
“Every mother should be able to say her son is a hero,” she said softly, eyes watering.

  
“Oh, Mum, don’t cry.”

  
“Don’t tell me what to do. My baby’s in a hospitable bed, I’ll cry if I want to.”

  
“ _Mum_.”

  
“I haven’t seen you in three years, you let me be.”

  
“I missed you,” he whispered, because he didn’t know just how much until that moment and it was making his throat feel thick.

  
“We’ve all missed you,” she whispered back, before her decorum broke and she leaned over the bed, pressing her face into his hair.

  
It took some time, but she was able to help him out of the building and into their old, rickety pick-up. It jostled him every time they hit a bump in the road, which was often, but they didn’t have far to go. Before long at all, the big tent came into view, all its colors still bright even with the fading sun.

  
“This is just for a little while,” he said as she parked the truck in front of their caravan, close enough that he wouldn’t have to walk more than a few steps.

  
“Oh, my darling, it is not this life or another. No one will make you stay, but we will always welcome you back.”

  
He wished he could take her at her word, but he knew at least one member of this circus that didn’t share that sentiment, whether it was begging him not to leave or refusing to welcome him back. Arthur was the last thing Eames thought about when he was certain he was going to die and that terrified him. At the same time that he desperately wanted to see the little boy he’d loved, he worried the man that little boy had become would turn him away. But there was only one way to find out and he couldn’t do that hiding in his parents’ caravan.

  
He watched bits of the show from the back flap, where the animals made their entrances, leaning heavily on the cane they had given him at the hospital. Even after three years, he still knew the cues by heart and he was well out of the way when the elephants exited the tent, the animal tamer balancing on the matriarch’s trunk.

  
“Hello, my friend!” He called, hopping down in front of Eames.

  
“Yusuf,” Eames nodded, only briefly taking his gaze away from the performance. Yusuf was not really a performer, but he dressed up and played the part for the opening sequence. His animals were so well trained they responded to anyone familiar, but secretly Eames hoped Lola the lion still didn’t like Dom. It had given him no end of amusement to watch her intimidate him.

  
“Did you find your world of adventure?” Yusuf asked, removing his turban before reaching into a large crate of imported bananas to treat his animals. The massive grandmother in the lead was already sniffing around him with her large trunk before he could straighten his back fully. Eames reached out and she dropped the prehensile appendage into his hand, nosing about his shoulder and his head, practically laying kisses on him.

  
“If adventure is what you want to call what I was looking for. I found the war and I nearly died. And now Inception has found me.”

  
“Saito has a way of knowing about his own. It is a bit eerie.”

  
“So you all knew I was here?” Eames asked, the bottom of his stomach dropping out with a feeling that wasn’t quite as oppressing as dread but could come very close.  
Yusuf shook his head and began tapping the elephants on their rumps with his whip to herd them into the night’s makeshift pen. The grandmother pulled one last banana from his jacket pocket before he could slip away and he laughed, still amazed at all of his overgrown pets.

  
“Your name was in the paper, Eames. I don’t know when Saito went to town to get it or why he chose that day, that is what is eerie about the man, but he did and there was your name, well, this name you’ve chosen for yourself. The headline read : _’Long-lost Eames heir sacrifices for crew of HMS Nolan – miraculously survives._ ’ It was in all the papers that the battleship had been sunk by the Germans, but we didn’t know you were on it until this.”

  
Eames nearly felt guilty for making his family worry, but he was the one who was never going to walk properly again. The older man must have seen Eames’s hackles rising like one of his animals, because he smiled softly and gestured for Eames to look back into the tent. Yusuf placed a warm hand on his shoulder and leaned close to speak softly into his ear.

  
“We’re all of us very proud of you, Eames. If you’re worried that one is going to turn you away, especially now that you’re a war hero, I think you’ve forgotten how very much in love with you he’s been since almost the day he was born. You know Saito gave the newspaper to your parents and it disappeared almost directly after. No one has been able to find it.” Yusuf smiled and clapped Eames’s shoulder once before departing to ready his wolves for Owen’s performance.

  
Eames’s heart was too busy doing handsprings to notice him leave, his eyes focused on the sole beacon of white high up above the audience inside the tent - _Arthur_. The spotlight followed him through the dark as he twisted and spun, flipped, and hung. Then he was hanging upside down by one foot that was secured only where he had wrapped a flimsy bit of the white sheet he was hanging from around it. The sequins on Arthur’s vest made him sparkle in the light, almost blinding to look at directly. Mal appeared at the edge of the tightrope, her costume a mass of glittering violet and black tulle. She tiptoed across the line and into Arthur’s spotlight and Eames caught himself gasping. It was hardly noticeable, especially with all of the layers of froth that had been added to her costume, but Eames could see the difference in the slope of her belly. She was maybe only a little more than halfway there, but she was pregnant without a doubt. So Amelie Petrov did marry Dominic Cobb, Eames felt no joy for them, only sympathy for Arthur, who was wrapping himself in a cocoon of the snow white sheets suspended from the top of the tent. Eames could feel his heart blocking his throat, even though he had seen this part of their act a million times before, performed when they were even smaller and younger.

  
Arthur finished wrapping himself as the music turned dark and the lights dimmed, the spotlight still on Mal and Arthur but now tinted red. Smoke filled the basin of the tent and Eames ducked out of the way for the second time as a pack of wolves streaked past him, all long legs and dark fur and snarling mouths. He looked back just in time to see the wolves leaping out of the lake of smoke to try and nip at the figure of Dom, clinging for dear life to the lowest platform, while the animals attempted to drag him down. Mal began to dance along the line and Dom’s attention drifted between her and the wolves, playing his part well. She was still a thing of impossible beauty, even growing as she was with child and when the cue came, Eames almost believed what he was seeing - that when the lights flashed and his mother and father appeared amongst the smoke and wolves, Mal had pulled a small sabre from her tutu and stabbed her brother. Eames watched without breathing as Arthur fell, the rolls of white sheet unraveling as he spun too fast for Eames to catch any details of him. He approached the ground with alarming speed and just before he hit –

  
               He stopped.

  
With less than a meter of material between him and the wolves, Arthur hung from his sheet and waited patiently as the audience roared with surprise and appreciation. Then he pulled himself up until he found a darkened platform and disappeared so that the audience could focus on Owen and Vivienne, and Mal acting as their minion, trying to seduce Dom Cobb’s clown into madness.

  
Eames didn’t watch, because Arthur was coming toward him but hadn’t noticed him yet, and he had grown more beautiful than ever, his hair long and curling where it had come loose from the heavy coat of pomade slicking it back, ropy muscles and milky skin left obscenely exposed by the skimpy vest and white tights he wore. Eames, breath caught in his throat, hardly knew how he was ever able to leave him.

  
…

  
Fischer sets a different folder, lighter brown, down in front of him, apparently uncaring of the mess of eggs and beans that Eames had been diligently mopping up with a piece of toast. Eames shoots him a glare but deigns to open it He’s curious as to the inner workings of Fischer’s mind even if he still has no intention of helping the man. He’s glad Ariadne was still sleeping when he slipped out just after the break of dawn, more worn out from her ordeal and her travels than she’d been willing to let on. He’d like to avoid any more prying questions from her just yet if he can. The Inception has a lot of secrets and Ariadne will learn them in time.

  
His gaze is greeted by more grainy black and whites, these ones of a crime scene, whole frames slightly bleached where the camera’s flash reflected off the wet ground. The body in the foreground is clear though. A man of indeterminate age in a nice suit, limbs akimbo in death. He looks sleazy enough, an Al Capone wannabe. Eames can’t tell what country this was in from the picture, but the man’s a genuine gangster, and not the roving band of teenage delinquent kind with their matching jackets and greasy hair.

  
Eames flips through the photos and scans the coroner’s report. Daniel Cobol, cause of death: two slugs to the chest at close range. Eames’s fingers start to twitch for a cigarette. “You think Dom Cobb did this?”

  
“Mr. Eames, I _know_ Dom Cobb did this.”

  
“Then what do you want my opinion of them for?” Eames pushes the folder out of his way but his breakfast isn’t salvageable. He pouts down at it, still hungry.

  
“Mr. Eames, don’t push me. I’m not here to ask for your opinion, I’m looking for your assistance and I can compel it from you if I have to.”

  
Eames sighs, folding his hands in his lap. He’s left his cigarettes in his cabin and he’s ruing that mistake now. “I must apologize for being so blunt, Agent Fischer, but I don’t believe you.”

  
Clearly this isn’t the type of reaction that Fischer is expecting based on the way that his brows shoot up nearly to his hairline. Probably when a criminal is threatened in this manner they tend to remember that they are indeed a criminal and attempt to save their own hides by cooperating. Eames does no such thing. If Fischer had a shred of evidence on him, he’d have been behind bars years ago. Eames is a thief and a liar and a conman but he is also a war hero and the last living heir of a very wealthy family whose name is dangerous to besmirch without concrete evidence. Fischer knows this and Eames knows that Fischer knows.

  
“I _have_ evidence against you, Mr. Eames. If you help me locate Dom Cobb, I can make it go away.”

  
“Agent Fischer, it’s been a pleasure, but you’ve no real leverage against me and I have not changed my mind about helping you to find Cobb,” Eames says and stands, wiping his hands on the napkin that had been in his lap before dropping it onto his plate and Fischer’s folder.

  
“Wait! Wait. Tell me about The Mourning Dove,” Fischer says, desperation lacing his voice with cruelty. Eames doesn’t mean to hesitate, but Arthur’s always been able to knock him off his guard.

  
“I have no idea – “

  
“That’s what they’re calling him,” Fischer says. “The papers. They call him The Mourning Dove now that his sister’s dead and he’s alone without a partner.”  
Eames is suddenly glad that Fischer destroyed his breakfast as the rest of it begins to rebel in his stomach.

  
“I never saw your circus, but I’d heard of the Petrov Doves. World renowned. I’d even heard they could give China’s Imperial acrobats a run for their money, but without his sister, where does that leave the surviving bird? It’s quite sad.”

  
“It is sad, Agent Fischer. They could do impossible things together, but he’ll be just fine on his own.”

  
“Arthur Petrov?”

  
Arthur’s name on Fischer’s lips makes Eames cringe.

  
“They were twins weren’t they? I think I have a billing here… ah yes,” Fischer murmurs over the shuffling of papers until he pulls out a flyer, the dynamic lettering extolling the abilities of the famous flying twins. “Supposedly, he never speaks. They must have been very close, for her to talk for the both of them. I certainly hope he doesn’t take a swan dive off the tightrope after her.”

  
Fischer’s barely able to finish talking before Eames has a hand slammed down on the table in front of him, anger plain on his face and he doesn’t care.

  
“Quit pretending like you know something about them because you read a few articles in the paper, Fischer. Maybe Mal didn’t slip. Maybe she jumped. Maybe she was pushed. But Arthur’s stronger than all that. Of course he’s mourning, he’s lost the closest person to him in the world, but he won’t be followin’ her.” Fischer smiles when Eames loses control of his diction, slipping into his half-Irish brogue like a familiar sweater.

  
“But don’t you want to know which it was?” Fischer breathes. “Don’t you think _he_ might want to know?”

  
Eames doesn’t, but he sits back down anyway. “You want to know about The Doves, you tell me about this Cobol.”

  
“Acceptable terms.” Fischer smiles, smug as the cat that caught the canary.

  
…

  
Arthur and Mal started performing with their parents and their six sisters when they were just eight years old and by the time they were twelve, they were famous. Reporters dubbed them The Petrov Doves because, as they flipped and twisted through the air, it seemed to those sitting solidly in the stands that the beautiful acrobatic twins had no concern for gravity. They couldn’t be pulled from the air by simple physics alone, it was obvious and oh so impossible. By the time they were thirteen they were performing as a duo independent of their sisters who would never gain the notoriety the twins had already attained. Mal and Arthur could anticipate each other, could twist and reach for each other and grasp hands without needing to see each other. They made the crowds gasp and clutch at their chests, their hearts in their throats, sure the twins would fall. But they never did. They were fantastic. Owen McCullough was the magician, but The Petrov Doves _proved_ there was true magic in the Inception.

  
Even Eames, who had grown with them and watched them grow and knew their tricks and what they looked like without the glitter and sequins, found himself mesmerized by them time and time again. When the lights were off of them, he had always been mostly able to convince himself that they were just children, less special than the world wanted them to be. Even with Arthur walking toward him, eighteen years old and clearly more comfortable in his own skin than Eames had ever been, Eames tried to make himself believe that Arthur was still a kid tagging along after him wherever he went, silently asking to be loved. He tried to melt into the shadow of the tent, half-hoping Arthur wouldn’t see him, because Eames couldn’t reconcile this stunning _man_ with the boy he had made love to and then left behind three years before. This Arthur no longer belonged to him, and that knowledge hurt more than he could stand.

  
Arthur kept his head down, curls as black as the night sky hanging into his eyes. He was still young, but he wasn’t a boy anymore. Somehow, without Eames there to help him along, Arthur had grown up. Eames had to admit, though it pained him terribly, that he might have been the one holding Arthur back. Eames chewed his bottom lip and wished he could melt away into the darkness, but with his hip still healing and aching, he was awkward moving and his cane clanged against a metal stake. Despite the music and the sound effects pounding out from within the tent, the tinny echo of Eames’s trip-up seemed to him louder than everything. Arthur’s head snapped up, eyes already focusing in Eames’s direction, disbelief rapidly replacing surprise in his expression. His lips slackened open into a small ‘o’ and Eames’s heart felt like it had decided to stop beating.

  
He’d thought Arthur would hate him. He’d been certain of it, actually. Even that dark night in the Atlantic, with explosions sparking overhead like fireworks, blurry beneath the inky water, with Arthur’s soft features filling his vision, Eames was certain Arthur would hate him. When most men wax poetic about seeing a light, about their lives flashing before their eyes, Eames saw Arthur and he wasn’t so desperate to delude himself that he could pretend it away as nothing. He’d realized that night in the grass when Arthur was just fifteen and he was eighteen and stupid and desperate, that he loved Arthur. Eames loved Arthur more than was safe, definitely more than was sane, and it terrified him as much at twenty-one with war behind him as it did then, when he was green and didn’t have any skills outside of a few card tricks.

  
“Eames,” Arthur breathed softly, inaudible over the noise of the show, but Eames saw his lips move and that was how he’d heard Arthur half of the time anyway, by watching when he couldn’t listen. He couldn’t tear his eyes away now. Arthur glittered in the moonlight like an illusion, like something out of Eames’s dreams, and he had dreamed of Arthur before: on his back in the belly of the ship, in traction at the Irish hospital, in the tent before he’d ever left.

  
Eames couldn’t trust himself to speak so he just nodded, holding his breath as Arthur came closer and closer. His costume left nothing to the imagination, the better to illuminate his grace in the air, to make the girls and boys want him and want to be him, but it was destructive to Eames. To see every inch of Arthur like this, after three years of missing him and loving him from so far away, it made Eames dizzy with the rush of emotions overtaking him. In that moment any courage he’d managed to build since his mother had found him in his hospital bed dwindled to only the barest hints of bravery. Eames was terrified of the way that Arthur made him feel, because nothing else, _no one_ else had ever made him feel so strongly.

  
Arthur entered his space, the warmth of his body seeping through Eames’s clothes and into his skin.

  
“You came back,” Arthur whispered, raising his hand to Eames’s face, hesitating before touching. He never would have hesitated before, when they were children and Eames had never done anything to dissuade Arthur of the idea that anything he wanted Eames would give him.

  
Before, Arthur would have touched Eames without thinking and it crushed Eames to know that Arthur was afraid to touch him now. Arthur’s fingers trailed feather-light over his jaw, pressing heavier against the collar of his pea coat, torn skin that Eames had once kissed into callouses dragging over the worn wool. Eames reached out, lightly resting the hand not clutching the curve of his cane against Arthur’s hip. He was reticent but he _needed_ to touch this Arthur that wasn’t a hallucination, or a figment of his memories. There was a long moment where they were silent, barely daring to breathe, just touching hesitantly, afraid to press too hard in case even the slightest pressure might shatter the illusion. But the moment was broken all too soon when the howl of a wolf pierced the silence between them and Arthur snapped back into reality, physically jerking away.

  
“I have to go,” Arthur said quickly, still tugging at the collar of Eames’s coat as if he was reluctant to let go for fear Eames might disappear on him again. Eames understood the unspoken question lingering in the air, but he didn’t have an answer that could satisfy every facet of it. He’d be there when the show ended, but he wouldn’t be there forever.

  
He didn’t bother to watch the rest of the show once Arthur left him, unable to stomach it after he’d seen Arthur up close, touched him, breathed him in. He limped away from the tent in the opposite direction that Arthur had gone. He didn’t need to see Arthur stripping off his tights behind the animal cages, preparing for his magical return to the show, when Dom’s character came to his senses and Arthur’s good triumphed over Mal’s evil. Eames would walk a mile in pain to miss having to see any more of Arthur’s bare skin knowing that physically, he could just reach out and run his fingers over it, but knowing, emotionally, that he couldn’t.

  
He got as comfortable as he could in the lumpy bed in his parents’ caravan and didn’t sleep for the sounds of the circus, sounds that had been like a lullaby for the most formative years of his life. The lions’ roars and the trumpets of the elephants, the howls of the wolves, the gasps and cheers and applause of the crowds, had all been replaced by the pop of gunfire, the heavy boom of bombs exploding overhead, the wet crashing of the Atlantic against the steel side of a ship, the calls of the seagulls. It was all just noise, but the noise of war had never caused such a constriction in his throat or a heaviness in his chest.

  
Eames did what he could while he waited for his body to heal enough for him to travel again. It wasn’t much, tending the animals under Yusuf’s supervision, painting posters – taking extra care with the shadowy figures of The Doves - sewing patches onto costumes and into the canvas tents. He stayed out of the way as much as he could. Useless was never something he’d felt before, and the restlessness he’d suffered as a teenager was nothing compared to the way he felt spending half his days moping in the dark of his parents’ caravan when he wasn’t hiding behind them like a coward. There had been boys in the bunks that had cried for their mothers in their sleep, some that had done it awake the first time a U-boat was spotted on the radar, but Eames hadn’t been one of them. There wasn’t a woman in the world that Eames would ever love more than his mother, but that was because he’d already found and willingly left the love of his life. Even as a child, he’d never been one to hide behind his mother’s skirts in the face of strangers. But in the wake of his injury, he found himself using his parents as a shield against the rest of his circus family, against Dom Cobb and Mal - Mal _Cobb_ \- and Arthur… mostly against Arthur.

  
“You can’t avoid the boy forever, Ireland,” his father said to him finally, nearly three weeks after his mother had brought him back. He had two of Arthur’s costumes hidden away in his commandeered corner of the caravan, unable to bring himself to sew the holes closed and the sequins back on when they still smelled of the man. Even worse, he couldn’t bring himself to wash the smell away. Eames had heard Arthur question Vivienne about them, but he’d refused to come out of the caravan and Vivienne had spoken too softly to hear her response.

  
“I haven’t a clue what you’re on about, Da.”

  
“Don’t be playin’ daft with me, boy,” Owen rumbled, ruffling Eames’s hair with his large, roughened hand like he used to do to both boys when they were young and not every bit as tall as him, though Eames was sure he would always feel as if his father towered over him. Owen McCullough was larger than life in the minds of everyone who ever met him, his son’s mind more than anyone’s. “He’s been pinin’ away for three years and here you are hidin’ out in the dark. I didn’t teach my boy to hide.”  
“He did not pine!” Eames protested, his voice rising and cracking like it hadn’t since he was a kid struggling through puberty.

  
“And I suppose he’s not the one you’re avoidin?”

  
“No!”

  
“Artie missed his best friend s’all I’m sayin, my stubborn boy.”

  
Eames shrugged away from his father’s hand, hot tears of frustration pricking at the backs of his eyelids. His cheeks flushed an embarrassing rose beneath the sparse stubble that he rarely bothered to shave.

  
“Yer not proud of me, then?” He demanded, petulant, sulking in the shadows, fingers clutching at one of Arthur’s sequined vests.

  
“Oh, son, of course I’m proud o’ you. You, Ireland, are the greatest bit o’ magic I have ever performed. I’m not tryin’ ta guilt you, but you cannot convince _me_ you didn’t miss him. That little boy has been the center of your world since the day he entered this one. I don’t like ta see you hurtin’, my boy, and it’s breakin’ yer own heart to hide away like this.”

  
Owen was a stocky man, not tall but wide, broad shoulders and corded muscle that made him seem larger than he was, and his face was the type of terrifying that mothers wove into bedtime stories to frighten their children into behaving. Owen McCullough looked every bit a bogeyman to someone who had never met him. Eames had seen him go toe to toe with an angry bear without even a hint of fear and send the bear back to its pen, whining and shamed. But Owen was gentle as a lamb most of the time and Eames had always felt safest at his father’s side. With the hand that Eames had shrugged off, Owen reached out to his son again and pulled him in tight, nearly crushing him to his chest. Eames stayed silent, taking deep, heaving breaths against Owen’s coat. He ached to cry, for himself and his hip that still pained him like the day it was crushed, for how badly he missed Arthur, for all of the boys on his ship that he hadn’t been able to help and the boys on other ships still fighting when he no longer could. Eames could count on one hand the people who had ever seen him shed even a single tear, and they were his mother, father, and Arthur. This position, held close to Owen’s heart, reminded Eames of every time he’d sobbed in his father’s arms, whether from temper or hurt feelings or true sorrow. Eames felt all of those now, but the tears he shed were silent and slow, burning hot against his skin and dampening Owen’s clothes.

“Shh, Ireland. Ain’t no shame in feeling, my boy. Ain’t no shame in that at all. My brave, brilliant boy…”

 

Eames stayed like that, clutching tight to the father he’d worshipped all his life until his eyes slipped closed and his breathing evened, and his father put him to bed like he was a child again. He hadn’t slept so well since he left. 

 

 

 

Mal, married and pregnant, was even more intolerable to Eames than she’d been before, and he realized he’d been subconsciously avoiding her as much as he’d been consciously avoiding Arthur the very moment she entered his orbit after his father had pushed him to quit hiding. The way Eames felt about Mal was the same way he thought he might have felt about a younger sister should he have had one. His natural impulse was to protect her, just as it was with Arthur, but ever since she’d started thinking for herself she’d thought herself above him, above his help, and above any love he had left over to give her once he’d given all he could to her brother. As a result of Mal’s fierce need to seem independent and Eames’s need to _be_ independent they rarely saw eye to eye on anything and bickered more than a real brother and sister should.

 

Mal wanted everyone she came in contact with to obey her and since most did, she found it increasingly frustrating to be thwarted time and again in her attempts to cow Eames, and Eames had eyes trained only on Arthur, no room for his twin. Mal got the attention she sought from Eames by acting out against him, so their relationship was antagonistic at best, but mostly functional because of who they had in common. As far as Eames was concerned, from the very moment he was born Arthur hung the moon and for those first formative years Mal was Arthur’s voice-box. When they were young they would have both done anything for him, and while Mal had every right to grow up and move on, Eames resented her for leaving Arthur behind just as he had done and was planning to do again. It had been Eames’s hope, buried deep within and not often thought about, that if Arthur couldn’t rely on him, he could always rely on his sister. Eames had no idea until she cornered him a month into his recovery that Mal felt the same about him.

  
He was sitting on the steps to the caravan, his leg stretched out to the side of the metal to ease the ache in his hip, as he regretfully worked on Arthur’s neglected but oft-fondled costumes. They didn’t smell of him any longer, but Eames could see Arthur in them in his mind’s eye and even though the images only worked at the raw edges of the gaping hole in his heart where Arthur belonged, Eames couldn’t bring himself to push them down. Every show he watched Arthur soar through the air as if he wasn’t a slave to gravity like the rest of the human race, then hobbled away before he could be caught by the acrobat on his way to quick-change. Every night after, he curled in his bed and held tight to Arthur’s costumes and felt like a fool and coward, willing his hip to heal faster so that he could escape from his emotions all the sooner.

  
Eames didn’t hear Mal approach, didn’t even realize she was nearing his spot until he saw her bare calf out of the corner of his eye. They’d issued him bifocals in the hospital for some optical damage he hadn’t even realized he’d suffered until he’d tried to read the paper and found the words blurred together when they’d been clear before his tour. He peered over them at her, eyebrows drawn together. Even without the aid of the frills of her costume, the bump of her stomach was hardly noticeable to someone who didn’t know how svelte she was naturally. Her dress was cornflower blue and fitted to her bust, but it swayed with the breeze over her stomach and thighs. Her feet were bare and her curls were untamed and she should have reminded him of some backwater wild woman, but Amelie Petrov had always been ravishing and this moment was no exception. Even with her fine features screwed up in distaste, she was beautiful.

  
Eames’s heart fluttered against his ribcage, waiting for the attack. He liked to think he’d matured, that the war had made him a man, but war didn’t cultivate patience and while he had that in spades when it came to perfecting a trick or maintaining a con, he’d never been able to manage it in the presence of Mal. Since she’d set up camp with the enemy, which was how he still thought of Dom Cobb, he couldn’t imagine he’d manage it this time.

  
“I didn’t think you would ever come back,” she said, not quite sneering. He might have almost believed that she’d missed him if he didn’t know that she’d get along just fine without him.

  
“I never said I was leaving for good,” he said evenly, pretending to focus on his stitching so that he wouldn’t have to face the accusations in her wide, dark eyes.

  
“You went to _war_.”

  
“Please don’t act like I abandoned you by trying to make a life for myself outside of being a sodding gypsy. If you don’t change your tone I might think you actually missed me.”

  
Mal huffed and crossed her arms over her belly, drawing attention to the slight swell of it, still somehow elegant despite her youth. Sometimes it was hard for Eames to remember that Mal was Arthur’s twin and younger than Eames when she ran around acting like she had all the knowledge in the world and every opportunity to use it.

  
“Of course I did not miss you. You are an oaf and uncouth and I had Dom by my side.” Eames resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her theatrics, not surprised in the least that she was still a dizzy-headed romantic. “ _He_ thought you were going to die,” she finally hissed when she saw that he wasn’t going to give her a reaction.

  
Eames’s shoulders stiffened and his hackles rose. He knew Mal was talking about Arthur and not Dom. He’d been back a month and Arthur hadn’t come to him since that one accidental encounter outside of the big tent, and despite some niggling disappointment, he had all but convinced himself he was happier for it. He’d been in hiding and Arthur had obviously recognized the fact that Eames didn’t want to see him and respected it, and yet, half the camp seemed to see fit to tell Eames what he was doing wrong with regards to the other young man.

  
“Well, I didn’t, and I’m not going back,” he said, voice hardened against his building irritation. He waved a hand at his hip, needle and thread glinting in the sun and momentarily flashing in Mal’s eyes. “The Royal Navy wouldn’t have me even if I wanted to fight again. No use for a man who can’t walk on the deck of a ship. I’m only slightly more useful than a corpse out there.” He looked away from her, from her flinch and the beginnings of pity in her eyes.

  
“He wrote you,” she said, her voice softer but still disdainful.

  
“The only letters I ever got were from my mum,” he said slowly, suspicious. It had been a sore point, the small part of him that hoped against his conscious wishes every time that there might be a letter from Arthur. That same little part that died a bit each time there wasn’t.

  
“He never sent them. He did not think you wanted to hear from him since you abandoned him, abandoned us all. You did not even say goodbye. But I found them and so many of them were begging you not to die, to come back to him so he could apologize to _you_. You broke my brother’s heart!” Any traces of pity were gone by the time Mal finished speaking, emotion high in her voice. Eames bristled even as his heart shattered.

  
“You’re one to talk! You haven’t had time for Arthur since Dom Cobb set foot in our camp. It was never my responsibility to take care of Arthur, but I did it anyway because you were _always_ too busy for him. You think you’re going to make _me_ feel guilty?” Eames stood up, trying not to wince as his hip popped into place, doing his best to loom even though Mal had gained at least an inch on him in the last three years. It achieved the desired effect as she flinched and tears filled her eyes.

  
“ _He loves you_ ,” she hissed, swiping furiously at her cheeks. It shamed him enough that he reached out and pulled her into a tentative hug, remembering that despite the simple band on her finger and the baby she was nurturing, Mal was still just a girl and not nearly as mature as she liked to think.

  
“You don’t think I love him too?” He whispered into her hair. “It terrifies me how much.”

  
“I’m scared too. If I lost Dom, I would die,” she said into his shoulder, her words muffled by his shirt. “I wake up in the night and I just want to get on a train and go anywhere, but then I realize that I’ll be alone if I leave him and I can’t bear it. I do not know how Arthur can be so strong on his own. I could never live without Dom.” Mal began crying softly, her shoulders shaking beneath Eames’s arms. It felt as if there was an iron vice around his heart, constricting with its every beat and tightening with Mal’s words. Mal’s feelings were Eames’s greatest fear, to love so deeply and so wholly that it consumed a person’s very existence. Eames didn’t want that for himself and he absolutely didn’t want that for Arthur.

  
Mal tucked her chin against her chest and Eames rested his own atop her crown of curls, gaze rising of its own accord and scanning their surroundings until it landed on Arthur, waiting awkwardly a few feet away, hands in his pockets and wide eyes on Eames. Eames felt a spark when their eyes met and he thought he could see just the corner of Arthur’s lips quirk up in the barest hint of a smile. He was dressed down in soft gray slacks and a white cotton shirt, suspenders hanging down about his hips. Eames ran a soothing hand down Mal’s smooth back even as the ache in his own heart reminded him of its presence with a swift and painful vengeance.

 

 

Of course that night he couldn’t sleep at all and he couldn’t even blame the pain for it. Thoughts of Arthur swarmed in his head and wouldn’t let him rest. It was slow moving to make sure he didn’t wake his parents as he pushed out of bed and shuffled to the door of the caravan, trying to maneuver silently in the compact space when he could barely move even without walls to constrict him. The cool night air felt fresh on his face when the door was finally open and he closed his eyes and simply felt it kiss his skin for a few short moments…

  
“Eames.”

  
“Oh,” he said softly and opened his eyes. He wasn’t surprised, not really.

  
Arthur was there, a light spot in the shadow cast by the caravan. His hair was still slicked back from the night’s show, making his normally soft features seem severe with the way the shadows played over his face, hollowing his cheeks and blackening his already dark eyes. Again Eames was hit by how much Arthur had grown. The little boy he had loved was hidden deep within this beautiful man that Eames couldn’t even speak to.

  
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Arthur said, no room in his soft voice for Eames to interpret it as a question though he tried anyway.

  
“No, I –“

  
“Eames,” Arthur interrupted, stepping closer. He’d changed out of his costume, instead dressed again in a pair of sharp slacks, suspenders taut over his bony shoulders, bare except for the thin straps of his undershirt, his button down tossed over his forearm. The glowing ember of a cigarette drew Eames’s attention to Arthur’s mouth and his heart skipped.

  
“Don’t lie to me, Eames. Please.” Arthur tilted his head up, eyes locked onto Eames’s so that Eames couldn’t have looked away without being obvious. In those eyes, Eames could see a hint of the boy Arthur used to be, vulnerable and afraid. “I missed you,” Arthur whispered, finally looking away.

  
“Oh Arthur.” Eames leaned heavily on his cane as he descended the final step, any resolve he ever had dissolving in the face of Arthur’s insecurity. He reached out and cupped Arthur’s jaw, heart flipping when Arthur turned his face into Eames’s palm, nuzzling into his touch. “You terrify me.”

  
Arthur opened his eyes, another question lingering in his gaze, but Eames had no answer this time. Instead he drew Arthur closer and kissed him with everything he had, pressing every lingering doubt, every fear, every urge to up and run into Arthur’s mouth. Eames was desperate for Arthur to understand, to have any idea of the war of emotions constantly surging through him, but all he could do was kiss him and run his hands over Arthur’s skin, feel the cords of muscle beneath it. He knew Arthur was strong, had to be to hold himself aloft on those gauzy white drapes, to bear all of his weight with just one hand, so graceful Eames’s dreams couldn’t do him justice. Eames held him tighter, kissed him with more fervor, remembering an addiction he’d believed to be conquered. It took just one taste to burst the dam holding his emotions at bay.

  
“Arthur,” he mouthed against Arthur’s lips. “ _Darling_.”

  
Arthur stilled against him, going rigid in Eames’s arms. His grip became tight enough to bruise where his fingers had found purchase just above Eames’s hips, exposed to the air where his soft, woolen sleep pants hung low. His heartbeat nearly stopped when Arthur pulled away, eyes wide and hopeful. He pried the fingers of one hand from Eames’s side, trailing the tips up slowly over his chest, tracing the inky black tattoos he’d been given during his short time in the Navy. They were mostly naval symbols and nonsensical designs, but the Darling Dove written over his heart in neat script couldn’t be mistaken for anything to do with his brief military career.

  
“This is my handwriting,” Arthur whispered, looking at Eames with bewilderment as he traced the curving lines. Eames caught his hand, pressing Arthur’s palm to his chest, trapped between his fingers and his heart.

  
“I wrote it out, had one of the boys trace it onto my skin and then ink it in.”

  
There was a hesitance then between the both of them, Arthur still in shock and Eames suddenly worried that he’d made a mistake letting Arthur see this. But he was barely able to properly berate himself before Arthur was kissing him fervently again, lithe body molding to Eames’s bulkier one like it was always meant to be there, like a lock and a key. Arthur led Eames by the hand to their old tent, the bit of canvas that had once been Eames’s alone and then his and Arthur’s and then Dom’s as well. Now it was Arthur’s only and Eames found that thought depressing. The tent held a million memories for him and as Arthur helped him to crawl in, his breath caught harshly. There was an actual mattress laid out in the center, blankets piled high on top of it to create a bed that Eames could actually lay on, not the simple pallets they’d used as boys.  
“I thought,” Arthur started to say, but paused, looking away. “I thought when you came back, you’d stay here with me again. I understand, of course, why you haven’t, but I thought, in case you needed your space again… It was your tent first, after all.”

  
“And you’ve carted this bulky thing around with you to every place we’ve gone since I left the hospital?”

  
Arthur shrugged, crawling forward to sit cross-legged on the blankets, looking ever more like the boy Eames knew with every passing moment. “It’s not so hard. Dom has his own truck now.”

  
“And I thought you hated me,” Eames murmured, easing himself down to rest on the mattress beside Arthur, a small smile playing about his lips.

  
Arthur smiled too, slightly sheepish, a pretty blush creeping over his cheeks and shoulders, visible even in the dark of the tent. “Owen said that love and hate are easily confused.”

  
“This isn’t forever, Arthur,” Eames said solemnly then, afraid all of the time he’d spent torturing himself by avoiding Arthur was for naught if the boy thought Eames had come back for good and wasn’t just trapped by his handicap.

  
Arthur looked away, biting at his lower lip, but when he turned back it wasn’t trembling and there was a strength and resolve in his eyes unfamiliar to Eames. “I know. But one day it will be.”

  
He left no room for discussion after that, laying Eames down and tracing the curves of Eames’s body with his mouth and his fingertips, reverently laying soft kisses all along his bum hip, careful not to put any real pressure on the area, so light even on the ground that he could manage not to hurt Eames at all even after all of the pain Eames had put him through. Arthur put his lips to every inch of Eames’s skin and Eames had to bite his own forearm to muffle his cries when Arthur took him into his mouth, the wet heat of his tongue licking burning patterns against his flesh. They couldn’t do what they’d done in the field three years before on the night of Eames’s departure, not without backtracking every inch of the road to recovery that Eames had managed to limp down, but Arthur seemed determined to give Eames pleasure any way that he could.

  
Arthur wasn’t as skilled as the girls Eames had paid when the ship docked, he didn’t have the finesse that kept them clothed and fed, but he was eager and this wasn’t some lonely whiskey-soaked encounter meant to help Eames forget the dark-haired boy he was missing. This _was_ that dark-haired boy bobbing above his still bruise-mottled pelvis, pomaded hair coming loose with his movements, hanging into his dark eyes the way Eames remembered it. Eames used his hand on Arthur the way he had with boys in his bunk and if Arthur was suspicious about how easily it came to Eames, he said nothing, content to curl into Eames’s good side and lay his ear over Eames’s pounding heart, over his immortalization on Eames’s skin. Eames saw the pilfered newspaper tucked away beneath a blanket on the floor of the tent, his name standing out against the rest of the print, but he said nothing of it, instead wrapping an arm around Arthur’s shoulders and falling asleep to the level sound of Arthur’s breath.

 

The Petrov Doves were beloved all around, coveted by men and women alike for their grace and beauty, but there were only two men who could truly reach out and touch them, drag them down from the heights at which they soared. When Eames received Arthur’s letter consisting of only enough words to convey his simple message –

  
 _Eames,_

_  
Mal’s gone._

  
-he was properly devastated, but grateful in the most selfish of ways that it wasn’t Arthur who’d fallen. He’d let himself really relish the idea that the space he’d put between himself and the man he loved may very well have saved them both. Eames truly believed it was her mad and all-consuming love for Dom that had clipped Mal’s wings, no matter what single event had actually triggered her tumble. Eames didn’t for a moment think Dom would have pushed her, but not all pushes were purely physical. The danger of constantly defying gravity was that it then became easy to forget it existed at all and no amount of magic could have saved Mal if she’d convinced herself that she could truly fly. A few short weeks after receiving the letter, which itself must have taken a few weeks to find him, Eames bought a compartment on a train from Paris to nowhere in particular but with one specific destination in mind. He was going home and this time forever… just as Arthur had predicted.

  
…

  
“Daniel Cobol was murdered in 1936 in Paris. He was shot twice at close range and left to bleed out in an alley.”

  
“I was able to gather much of that from these lovely photographs, Agent,” Eames says impatiently, drumming his fingers against the tabletop.

  
Fischer eyes him impatiently, clear blue eyes cold as ice. “Cobol started out as a lackey for a South African crime syndicate, gun running. As he moved up the criminal ladder, he gained more territory, first in Africa and then in Europe. There was a period of time where it could be said no one moved in all of Kenya without Cobol’s knowledge.”

  
Fischer is giving him the facts, cold and hard, but he hasn’t explained anything. Eames wants to know what Dom Cobb has to do with this man, and how that knowledge will affect what little trust Eames has in him. Eames wants to know if he’s made an irredeemable mistake by leaving Dom Cobb with access to the most important people in his life. Eames _needs_ to know if Arthur’s safe. Even if Dom didn’t push Mal, he certainly cast a spell over her of some sort, and Eames doesn’t want Arthur falling under that same spell. He can’t get to the circus any faster than he’s going, but he can get to work immediately separating Arthur and Dom once he gets there, if he needs to.

  
“So he was a very bad man, probably deserved those rounds to the chest, wouldn’t you say?” Eames picks up his forgotten fork and begins to swirl patterns in his abandoned breakfast as he thinks.

  
“Daniel Cobol was a criminal, Mr. Eames, but within the agency, and within any church, it is understood that the decision of ending a life should be left up to a higher power.”

  
“Well, forgive me, Agent, but I’ve never set foot inside a church of any kind, myself, so I fail to be cowed by their ministrations. We circus folk live by a completely different kind of code, you see. Tell me then, how did this Cobol end up dead in a Parisian alley at the hands of a physicist’s son?”

  
Fischer looks surprised for just a moment before he schools his features, still too green to let something like that pass without showing any emotion. Fischer is far too young to have been working this case from the beginning. In fact, he hardly looks older than Dom Cobb himself.

  
“I shouldn’t be surprised that you know that. Cobb has never struck me as someone who valued discretion.”

  
Eames smirks. Under different circumstances, he thinks he could like Robert Fischer. “There are more secrets in a circus than any government operation, Agent Fischer. You could keep your lips locked tight forever and people would still learn things about you, find out the facts you’d rather keep hidden. Dom Cobb never told me a thing, but he didn’t come by the Inception by chance either.”

  
Fischer looks confused, which Eames thinks is the best way to keep him.

  
…

  
Eames had asked his father once, petulant and angry at Dom for even existing, why he had been so sure that Saito was going to allow the older boy to stay.

  
“Why would he send him away?” His father had asked in return and Eames had only bristled further. He knew very well that drifters and grifters and dreamers alike were welcomed by the Inception and her crew with open arms until they proved to be untrustworthy, but Owen was being deliberately obtuse.

  
“When he showed up, you recognized his name,” Eames persisted, tugging roughly on a knot of fur in Loki’s coat, just barely getting his hand out of the way when the wolf growled and snapped at him. Owen liked to keep his hand in with the pack so that he remained familiar to them. They behaved like puppies around Owen and usually around Eames as well, except for when he was distracted and forgot to be gentle.

  
Owen ran his palm over Odin’s flank as the alpha panted and wagged his tail, thoroughly enjoying his brushing. Sometimes Eames hated how calm his father always seemed to be, mostly because he could never quite achieve it himself. The wolves loved Eames most of the time, but Owen was their master even over Yusuf.

  
“It’s an old story, happened back before I bore these scars, when I was a younger and more impetuous thing than you, Ireland. It’s about the bond between two men forged when they’re starin’ Death in the face. Saito was a young man during the Great War, too young to be fightin’. He was separated from his battalion, lost deep in the woods and he was about to have his throat slit by a German soldier’s bayonet. He’d made his peace with his maker and prepared himself for death when that German soldier jerked once and collapsed atop him, the bayonet point sinking into the ground just off its mark. The German had been shot by a lone British soldier and Saito still thought he might die, but the Brit helped him to his feet and introduced himself as Miles Cobb. Saito’s never forgotten that debt. Savin’ the life of Miles’s only son allows him to repay it.”

  
“What do you mean, Saito saved Dom’s life?” Eames demanded, not satisfied with the story of loyalty his father had just told him.

  
“That’s Dominic’s story to tell, boy, not mine. And you keep what I’ve told you just now to yourself, hear? There are some bonds can’t be broken and they aren’t always for the eyes of others. Saito likes his past to stay behind him when he can keep ahead of it.”

  
Eames could only press his lips together and nod, hearing in the finality of his father’s tone that he wouldn’t be sharing anything else. It didn’t make Eames like Dom any better, but it meant he at least knew some part of the reason that Dom was there.

  
…

  
When he realizes that Eames isn’t going to tell him a thing about how he knows Dom Cobb is related to the professor Miles Cobb, Fischer gives up the stalemate he’d started and begins talking again.

  
“Cobol wanted to be at the top of the weapons trade. He had aspirations that were higher than his supply could boost him. He could sell all the guns he wanted, but after the First World War, it became clear that war was changing. To be on top, he had to have the best and most innovative weapons. That’s where Cobb came in. Cobol couldn’t get to the professor, but he could mold the impressionable mind of his young son. Did you know, Mr. Eames, that Dom Cobb is a certified genius? By the time he committed this murder, he could have been on his way to becoming a professor himself.”

  
“Well, he pulled the wool right over my eyes… Wouldn’t have known that boy from the village idiot.”

  
“He’s either very good at pretending to be someone he’s not, or his inflated I.Q. has left him socially inept.”

  
“Possibly a bit of both,” Eames offers. This new information doesn’t upset him. In fact, it sheds some light onto Mal’s infatuation and why none of the adults ever questioned Dom’s use to the circus. Perhaps Eames hadn’t paid as much attention as he’d been trained, and had missed all that Dom brought to the table, so blinded by jealousy he couldn’t see things for what they were. He still doesn’t like Dom Cobb, but he’s beginning to understand him.

  
“So Dom killed your crime lord, again I’m not seeing the crime. Was he even of age?”

  
“He was eighteen. Impressionable, but legally accountable. I understand that you don’t hold any sympathy for a man of Cobol’s character, but murder is murder and always illegal, Mr. Eames. Dom Cobb is required to pay for his actions just like anyone.”

  
Eames taps the fork against his plate, cringing at the tinny sound it makes, and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, his teeth leaving indents in the skin when he bites down. Eames doesn’t hold much sympathy for anyone really, not an obviously morally bankrupt man like Cobol, and not Dom either. His trust his hard-won, his good faith even harder, and in ten years Dom hasn’t earned either. But something about this case rings false to Eames and a few charged words about proper scruples aren’t going to persuade him one way or the other.

  
“How did Dom end up working with this Cobol?”

  
“Anybody can be swayed to do questionable things by the prospect of money. Brilliance does not always lead to wealth and with the crumbling economy and the sad state of Europe after the war, money was money, ill-gained or not. I would have to ask Mr. Cobb, myself, to be sure of his motive and the exact sequence of events, but it’s understood that Cobol was able to recruit Cobb along with several other impressionable youths. Things were good for a while and then, obviously, they turned sour. There was a betrayal of some sort, Cobb killed Cobol and, we believe, another runner, a boy named Nash, but his body was never found.”

  
“No body, no crime, then.”

  
“No one has heard from Nash in the ten years since Cobol was killed, but you’re right. It’s as if he disappeared into thin air and I can’t prove he was murdered if I don’t have a body and a cause of death. What I do know is gunshots were heard and Dom Cobb was seen leaving that alley shortly afterwards, and when agents attempted to question him, he ran. It’s taken me a long time to track him down, but now that I’ve found him, I’m not about to let him get away again.”

  
“You couldn’t possibly have been old enough to have worked this case from the beginning. You can’t be more than a few years older than I am,” Eames snorts.  
Fischer purses his lips and his knuckles go white around his coffee cup. “Interpol is still a relatively young agency, Mr. Eames. My father was working Cobol from the beginning. If the man hadn’t been murdered, my father would have gotten him for racketeering and put him away. He worked tirelessly but he died before he could get a resolution. I’m doing that for him.”

  
“Ah, so that’s what this is. An agency orphan, following in your father’s footsteps in an effort to finally make him proud even if it must be posthumously. Closing this case won’t bring your daddy back, Agent Fischer.”

  
“This is about justice,” Fischer grinds out from behind a clenched jaw.

  
“What about this Nash? No body means no murder. How do you even know the boy is dead? How do you know _he_ didn’t commit your crime?”

  
At this point, Eames doesn’t care much whether Dom had done it or not. He’s simply playing Fischer’s Devil’s Advocate. It’s not a terrible crime in Eames’s eyes, and he’s more than certain that Dom had his reasons, if he committed the murder at all. Eames had been insanely jealous of Dom when they were younger and Dom had first arrived, and he doubts they’ll ever call each other a friend, but he likes to believe he’s more rational at twenty-six than he’d been at sixteen. Fischer’s case seems weak at best - a vendetta he can focus on instead of the abandonment he’s felt in response to his father caring more about a cold case than his own, living son.

  
“Nash wasn’t seen leaving the crime scene. Dom Cobb was. There were blond hairs found on the body. Nash’s hair was brown. I don’t need to defend my evidence to you, Mr. Eames. All I need from you is Dom Cobb’s location.”

  
Fischer is visibly frustrated at this point, possibly regretting getting Eames to stay. He has that effect on people when he wants to. He can be as suave and polished as any proper noble, but he isn’t one and sometimes people need to be reminded of that. Sometimes he needs to remind himself of it. He can be incredibly contrary when he feels it’s called for.

  
“And I’ve told you, I’m not going to help you with that. There is a code, Agent Fischer. We circus folk don’t take kindly to outsiders snooping around in our business. Even if I were to give you step by step directions to the camp’s location, the rest of them would sniff you on the wind and close ranks before you could show your face.”

  
“Then you need to get me in. I’ve been tailing you for years and before that my mentor, Browning, had his eye on you. I know you’re not a good man, Mr. Eames.”

  
“Agent Fischer, I’m flattered.”

  
Fischer narrows his eyes, his pale cheeks beginning to flush a pretty pink as the conversation fails to go his way. “This woman’s death was enough to drag you back to the circus. I know enough about you to know that’s the last place you really want to be. You must have cared some for her, or for someone close to her. Do you really want to believe she killed herself?”

  
“She could have fallen,” Eames says, voice flat.

  
“Really, Mr. Eames? You think a woman who’s been performing dangerous feats her entire life just slipped with no one but her husband as a witness? We both know this was no accident. Either Amelie Petrov jumped or she was pushed and whether you make this easy or difficult, I’m going to find out which it was and I’ll enjoy taking you down as well if I have to.”

  
“I can’t lead you to Dom Cobb, Agent Fischer, but that’s not to say you won’t be able to find your own way to the circus. If the Inception has something to show you, you’ll be seeing it,” Eames says flippantly, rising for the second time. He leaves Fischer ready to explode behind him, humming to himself along the way.

  
…

  
Eames didn’t leave quietly the second time around. He’d been made aware of just how much pain he’d caused his family by running away and he had matured enough not to do it again. He was twenty-two and still walked with a severe limp, but the newspaper article that had alerted Saito to his injuries and location had also given him an idea. There were reporters out there during this low point that thought it was necessary to identify Eames as someone more important than just another seaman. This made him wonder if these long-lost relatives of his might have as much interest as the general public in knowing of his existence. Vivienne had been disowned after she ran away and as far as she’d been concerned, her only family was the one that had adopted her into their fold. She never spoke of her parents or the status she’d once enjoyed. She’d told Eames only once that she never regretted leaving, that even if she lost everything else but still had her son and her husband, it would have been worth it. There was a faraway look in her eyes when she said this, but it wasn’t wistful or even particularly fond. Eames didn’t ask about his extended family again, not wanting to see such a sad look in his mother’s beautiful eyes, and eventually he’d stopped wondering, until Yusuf told him that the rest of the world believed something of him that wasn’t necessarily true. He _was_ an heir to whatever fortune the Eameses had, but he wasn’t really long lost and he wasn’t the only one left. But if Vivienne didn’t want the money that was her right by blood, there was no reason that Eames couldn’t have his piece.

  
He could consider this his first con, because there were lies told and facts omitted, but he’s never really felt like he’d taken something that shouldn’t have been his to begin with. Ira Eames may not have been a real person, but if the man that had thrown his only daughter away like so much trash needed an heir, Eames was willing to play that role and relieve Grandfather Eames of his money.

  
Mal barely spared him a second thought when he announced he was leaving again, her flighty mind already focused on bigger and better things than the boy who’d momentarily broken her brother’s heart. She had a baby on the way, and Eames hesitated to go, already seeing how Arthur would be wholly alone once he was gone, Mal already forgetting about him, but he knew better. He still believed that if he stayed in a life he could hardly bear, he’d end up hating Arthur more than he’d ever loved him. And so, thinking he was going to save them both, he went on his way. He didn’t say where he was going, but he was already thinking of what he would do with the money once he had his hands on it before he’d even left the camp.

  
Arthur followed him as far as he could just like he had the last time, going so far this time as to drive him to the nearest train station in the McCullough’s rickety old truck. There were no tears this time around, at least not on Arthur’s part. He wasn’t a child any longer and he didn’t act like one, which only served to make Eames feel even less mature as his own throat swelled and his eyes burned.

  
“Eames,” Arthur said softly when Eames didn’t immediately charge out of the cab of the truck.

 

“Yes,” he whispered, staring out the window instead of looking at Arthur’s face.

  
He felt Arthur’s hand on his thigh, tentative and light, but warm through his cotton trousers. He swallowed hard and still didn’t look. “I guess this is goodbye then,” he said instead of allowing Arthur to answer him. Arthur’s grip tightened on his leg and he nearly bolted from the truck right then.

  
“No. You’ll come back.”

  
“Arthur, you don’t know that. I don’t _want_ to come back, so you don’t know that I will.” It was cruel of him to say, but he didn’t think he could bear a drawn out and flowery goodbye filled with promises he didn’t intend to keep. That wasn’t what he’d given Arthur when he was fifteen and it wasn’t what the boy was going to get now.

  
“Oh, I see,” Arthur said quietly and Eames did turn then to see the lopsided smirk on Arthur’s face. Abruptly, he hated that smirk with a burning passion, where before it had only frustrated and annoyed him, that look in Arthur’s eyes that told the world he had a secret and he wasn’t going to share. It was the look Arthur got when he thought Eames was being silly or overreacting, the one he’d had that day Eames had thought he could intimidate Dom Cobb into disappearing.

  
“What, what do you see, Arthur? Please share.” His voice came out more desperate than he’d meant it to, broken instead of harsh.

  
“This is the part where I’m supposed to break down and tell you I’ll hate you forever if you don’t promise me that you’ll come back for me. This is the part where I let you believe that I’ll be better off without you so that you can go without a guilty conscience for leaving me behind. You’re not all that mysterious, Eames.”

  
“That’s not. That’s– well, can you judge me for it?” He wanted to tell Arthur about his smiles, about how he couldn’t bear to be the one to take them away, how he’d kept them for years and how it nearly killed him to think he was the reason Arthur might not smile again. Arthur hadn’t been smiling beneath the Atlantic, after all. It didn’t seem so absurd to Eames that he could leave easier knowing that Arthur was merely mad and could move on instead of crushed and alone.

  
“Yes,” Arthur said, squeezing Eames’s thigh, not angry or haughty, simply stating a fact. “You’re not as weak as all that, Eames.”

  
“Well, it worked before, didn’t it? You were a spoilt baby when I left last time and now, look at you. You _are_ better off without me.”

  
“You’re so full of yourself. Get out, go. Go figure yourself out. I’ll still be here when you get back.”

  
“Arthur,” Eames warned, because he didn’t want to repeat himself, but it did make it harder to leave with the boy so certain he knew more than Eames did about the future, that he knew more about what Eames wanted.

  
“The Inception _is_ your home, Eames. Nobody hurt you, everybody loves you. This is your home and you don’t have to be a part of it all of the time but you do have to come back. You _have_ to.”

  
“ _Arthur_ ,” Eames tried to begin again but Arthur ignored him and continued to talk over him, not quite hysterical, but maybe not the mature adult Eames had painted him as.

  
“You can’t hold it against people for loving you, Eames. You think we’re holding you back, but we’re not. Being loved isn’t a bad thing, and making me mad right now isn’t going to stop me from loving you today or tomorrow or five years from now. So this isn’t goodbye, even if you don’t love me back, because I know you love your mother and your father and I know they did right by you, so you won’t abandon us completely. I’m not going to get mad at you, because I’ve already done that and it _hurt_.”

  
There weren’t any tears this time for which Eames was more than thankful, but Arthur’s words were almost worse. Eames couldn’t recall a time that Arthur had been so expressive when upset. There had been poetic whispers in the dark and dynamic statements of excitement or despair, but when Arthur was angry or upset he had always shut down and reverted to the sullen and silent child he’d been. He got his point across in as few words as possible if he felt it worth getting across at all. Arthur’s face was solemn and impassive, but his cheeks were tinted with pink and Eames could see his jaw working beneath his skin. Eames realized that this time was no different from any other time that Arthur had gotten his way simply because Eames could not resist him.

  
“You’re my best friend,” Arthur whispered. “You can’t take that away from me.”

  
Eames cupped his jaw and kissed him with purpose, and Arthur made a startled sound against his lips before relaxing.

  
“I do love you, Arthur. I _do_ ,” Eames murmured against Arthur’s skin, fingers still curled around his chin.

  
Even the rumble of the train after that couldn’t get Arthur’s words out of Eames’s head, but he felt less guilty leaving this time than he had three years earlier.

  
…

  
“How did you get so wealthy? If you don’t mind my asking,” Ariadne says once Eames returns to the sleeper compartment, intent on finding his cigarettes like the sweet drag of nicotine will somehow be able to soothe away the burn left by Fischer’s insinuations.

  
She doesn’t sound remotely abashed though she manages the necessary niceties, and Eames is oddly calmed by her natural abrasiveness. She might look like she could be a Petrov herself, with her dark curls and dark eyes and pale skin, but her personality reminds Eames of himself. She’s visibly itching to live a life greater than the one that was given to her by birthright, fighting the reigns put on her by a society she didn’t choose to live in. Eames feels a kinship with the young woman and he finds he’s not offended in the least by her question.

  
“It’s just, I didn’t think the circus paid so well, you know.” She shrugs her shoulders, blushing like she thinks his pause was meant as a reproach.

  
“No, no, it really doesn’t. The fact is, my mother’s family is very wealthy and, while she was disowned when she ran away to marry my father, old men need heirs. Once I’d healed up as best I was going to, I had nowhere to go. I didn’t want to stay with the circus but the only other place I’d been was the war and I couldn’t have gone back if I’d wanted to.”

  
Eames lights a cigarette and gray smoke fills the compartment, before being ripped out through the cracked open window. He can hear the wind whistling by outside as the train rattles away on its tracks. They’re getting very close to their destination now, he doesn’t need the conductor’s announcements at every stop to know, he can _feel_ it.

  
“I suppose you could say that was my very first con, but the money really was mine. The old bastard wouldn’t have given a penny to my mother, but the second I showed up on his doorstep with my papers proving my identity and a medal pinned to my lapel, he was overjoyed to hand his money over.”

  
“So you _are_ a conman! How can I believe a word you say now?” Ariadne is smiling, holding her laughter down, but the mirth is clear in her eyes. Eames chuckles himself and ashes the cigarette into a cup.

  
“You can’t, dear Ariadne. Not a word. But for what it’s worth, I’ve only ever told you the truth.”

  
“Did you kill him?” She asks, narrowing her eyes, obviously expecting the answer to be no. He half thinks about saying yes just to see her reaction, but he’s promised to be truthful.

  
“I’m conman, petal, not a murderer. My grandfather was already on his deathbed when I showed up, all too ready to believe anything I had to say. I felt no remorse at all taking his money, you know, because he never once said a good word about my mum, even when I lied and told him she was dead. That stodgy old coot almost seemed vindicated by that knowledge. It helped me understand why she ran away and never looked back though. I don’t think the old man loved her at all and my da’s done naught but love her to the moon and back since the day they met. I’d have run away for that.”

  
“That’s so romantic!” There are dreams in Ariadne’s eyes and it makes Eames feel light to know he’s putting them there. He didn’t want to go home when he first got on this train, but this little girl is reminding him of the magic the Inception holds. “What did you buy with your newfound wealth? Everything?”

  
“Ah, no. Not to say I was pragmatic, but my first few purchases were mostly unselfish. I sent much of the money home, loyal to the end. I wanted my parents to buy a new truck and there were always babies being born. The rest I kept for myself. Once I was comfortably nestled against society’s bosom, I found it was all too easy to relieve other codgers of their dough as well. You see, I’ve a natural talent for replication and there was a veritable sea of the snooty elite who’d pay handsomely to own a work of art that was still sitting comfortably in my grandfather’s mansion, or even a museum across the continent. I always made sure to cover my tracks, but I was easily able to compound my inheritance by fooling the very people who would have judged me for the way I was raised. It was just like the pockets I’d picked as a child, but on a much larger scale.”

  
Eames smiles fondly and thinks of the gold band that’s been burning a hole in his pocket for the last five years. It was easily the most expensive thing he’d ever owned when he bought it, but now it’s comfortable amongst his silk shirts and handkerchiefs, and all of the other nice things he’s bought with his ill-gotten gains because he never had nice things as a child. For every nice thing Eames has bought for himself, he’s bought a more expensive and more subdued version for Arthur and he’s sent it all to wherever Arthur may be, except for the gold ring. It was never his intention to keep Arthur his by plying him with gifts, but for every selfish thought Eames has had about deserving to own nice things, he’s thought Arthur deserved even better. Arthur has always been too exquisite a creature to be always done up in makeup and sequins. He doesn’t expect Arthur to feel indebted to him because of the gifts, but he does expect Arthur to smile even if Eames can’t be there to keep it.

  
“It’s like you’ve given up one life of adventure for another,” Ariadne muses, despondence lacing her voice. “I’m jealous. I feel like I’ve never done anything of importance.”

  
“Chin up, lass. That’s why you’re going to the circus, is it not? To have yourself an adventure?”

  
Ariadne nods, looking out the window wistfully.

  
“Are you certain you’re ready for what you’re about to encounter?” He hedges, lowering his voice to amplify the mystery. She doesn’t look ready, in fact she looks hesitant, but she masks it well, setting her jaw and curling her slim fingers into tiny fists. She’s a force, this girl, and Eames is already proud of her. The excitement is still there in her eyes, the desire, and he wants to deepen it and he knows how.

  
“Have you ever ridden an elephant, Ariadne?”

  
“No.” Her voice is already a little breathy as she turns her wide, kittenish eyes on him.

  
“Have you ever stood at the center of a pack of wolves and felt no fear?”

  
“Of course not.”

  
“So, I assume it’s safe to say you’ve never slept curled amongst a pride of lions, then, or sunned your belly next to a tiger?”

  
“That’s insanity!” Ariadne laughs, cheeks pink and eyes wide. She’s leaning towards him now, fingertips digging into the seat cushion.

  
“That’s the Inception, Ariadne, real magic,” He stage-whispers in her ear just before he pulls a silver coin from behind it, rolling it over his knuckles to her obvious delight as the train car shudders and shakes on its wheels.

  
…

  
He sleeps fitfully, but he sleeps and this close to his destination, for the first time in a long time, he dreams. Everything at his periphery is hazy and dark, but everywhere he looks the straight-ahead is clear with almost pinpoint focus. On either side of him there are shadows moving, roiling, trying to get into his field of vision. He lowers his hands and stretches out his fingers so that the tips brush the shadows and they feel like fur and suddenly, without seeing, he knows the wolves are in the shadows, bumping against his thighs and head-butting his palms. Odin howls and races ahead where Eames can see him, looking back just once to make sure that Eames is going to follow and then the shadows push him into the ring amidst a chorus of growls and howls, lions and tigers roaring, and the trumpeting of the elephants like horns announcing his return.

  
He steps to the center of the ring and the shadows dissipate, all but Odin and Loki who heel on either side of him. The spotlight cuts through the darkness to point at the top of the tent and Eames follows it with his eyes, not surprised when his gaze alights on the single performer holding himself aloft on just a flimsy bit of sheer cloth, but his heart seems to stutter anyway, because it’s Arthur and he’s magnificent. The spotlight follows him as he twists and turns and wraps himself up, sparkling like a diamond against the shadows, moving to music that Eames can’t hear. Arthur never looks down and Eames can’t stop looking up. He can’t see anything outside of the spotlight and he’s not interested in anything outside of it. When he feels a hand on his shoulder and a whisper in his ear, he still can’t bear to look away.

  
“He’ll fall,” Mal whispers, her lips close enough to press against his ear. Her fingers squeeze where they’re touching his shoulder and he can feel the pressure even through the thick wool of the navy pea coat that he hasn’t worn in years.

  
“He won’t fall,” he says without doubt, not alarmed by Mal’s presence because, somehow, he knows that he is dreaming.

  
“He will. He will forget that he cannot fly and he will fall just like I fell.”

  
“And did you? Did you _fall_ Mal? Or did Dom push you?”

  
Eames finally tears his gaze away from Arthur, looking sharply to the side where he can feel Mal’s hand, trying desperately to see her. She reaches up to stroke his cheek, still staying out of sight and he shivers at her touch on his skin. She’s cold.

  
“Would Dom push me?”

  
Eames just breathes for a moment, staring at nothing, Mal a heavy weight at his back. But he knows the answer, has known it since Fischer asked it of him. Of course he does, because Mal is just a figment of his subconscious now.

  
“No, no he wouldn’t.”

  
“No, he wouldn’t,” she echoes sadly.

  
“Did you fall, Mal?” He asks again, more forcefully, because he doesn’t think she did. “Mal, did you fall?”

  
He turns, wrenching out of her grasp, determined to face her when she repeats to him what he already believes – that she jumped, that reality didn’t match up with her dreams and even though the rest of the world called her a dove, she’d never actually be one. But there’s only darkness behind him, no Mal, no light, no anything. The dark feels suffocating suddenly and, gasping for breath, he turns back and tries to find the spotlight, certain he’ll be able to breathe again once he can see. He feels like he’s drowning again, like the inky black water of the Atlantic is closing over him and pulling him down. So he searches frantically for light, for Arthur. That’s how he got through it the first time, the image of Arthur frowning at him filling his mind’s eye and pulling him to the surface because he wasn’t going to die with anything but Arthur’s smile in his heart. But he isn’t dying, this is a dream, and it’s not Arthur that he finally sees, but Saito.

  
He’s taller than Eames in reality, but here Saito looms over him like he seemed to when Eames was a boy causing mischief with his childish tricks. Saito is still intimidating, but Eames draws back his shoulders and stands as tall as he can, meeting Saito’s guarded, brown eyes with his own shifty, blue ones. Eames is not a child anymore. He’s been gone eight years total and he _has_ grown and he’s become a man. His mother once told him that he would always be met with open arms anytime he chose to return, but the Inception is Saito’s and he has the final say. So it is with relief that Eames sees Saito smile because it is his own subconscious telling him that he’s finally ready. He’s made the right decision.

  
“Welcome home, Eames.”

  
 _Home_.

  
…

  
Eames wakes up before the train reaches the depot. The sky outside is gray with impending sunrise. His nerves are on alert, singing with anticipation. He’s been all over the world with the Inception, bought or stolen any shiny thing that’s caught his eye, and cheated death, but there’s nothing quite like this. His eyes are bright as the train slows to a stop, fingers twitching where the tips are resting against the window pane. To any unknowing eyes he knows he looks calm, but Ariadne looks far from it, practically pressing her nose to the glass.

  
“You won’t be able to see the tents from the train, pet,” Eames says with a grin, because he can’t remember the last time he was so excited about anything and the emotion is infectious.

  
She pouts a little and sits back down, but Eames can tell that she’s itching to plaster herself back to the window and prove him wrong.

  
“Now I know I promised to take you all the way to the camp and I will, but first I’ll need a small favor of you. Do you think you can help me, Ariadne?”

  
It shows how much she’s come to trust him in just the last few days that she doesn’t look remotely suspicious of him any longer. “Whatever I can do,” she chirps, eyes absolutely sparkling with dreams that are about to come true.

  
They exit the train separately, out of doors on opposite sides of the car as if they’ve never even met and Eames doesn’t look for her as he moves through the throng of people trying to get from the platform to the station. He heads toward his baggage even though he can see Robert Fischer standing next to it, arms folded across his chest, pulling his jacket tight across his shoulders. Behind Fischer, Eames can see his mother, blinking in and out of sight as people cross the platform in front of her.

 

There’s a small boy in her arms, hair the type of perfect white-blonde that only babies have naturally. He can’t be more than three years old. She sees him, but she doesn’t raise her hand to wave, recognizing something suspicious about Fischer and pretending to be waiting for someone else. She’s wearing a hat with a veil over her hair and it obscures her face enough that Eames isn’t worried about Fischer being able to pick her out of the crowd should he turn around.

  
“Agent,” he says, nearly shouting to be heard over the bustle.

  
“Let me help you with your bags,” Fischer offers, but Eames waves him off as if this really is nothing more than a friendly exchange between traveling acquaintances.

  
“Not necessary, Agent Fischer, I’ll procure a cart.”

  
Fischer glowers and Eames just continues to smile. He’s almost home now. There’s nothing Fischer can do.

  
“Listen to me, Mr. Eames,” Fischer says, wrapping pale, slender fingers around Eames’s elbow. His grip is strong, though to an onlooker it can’t resemble anything more than a friendly gesture. “This is the last chance I’m going to give you. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Give me Dom Cobb and I’ll see that all of the evidence I have on you disappears.”

  
Eames just smiles and glances away from Fischer to tip the boy loading his bags onto a metal cart. “We’ll be seeing each other again, I think, Agent Fischer.” Eames nods at him and smirks at the frustrated flush staining Fischer’s skin. “Good day, Agent.”

  
Eames ignores the aborted protest Fischer starts to get out before a tiny blur barrels into him, nearly knocking him off balance.

  
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. Are you alright, sir? I really am just so very sorry. I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going. Gosh, I’m so embarrassed.” Ariadne holds tightly to Fischer’s arms, forcing him to bend nearly in half to be of height with her, refusing to let go despite his protests. Eames grips the handle of his luggage cart and all but melts into the crowd.

  
There’s no family reunion on the platform, not with Fischer still this close, but as Eames draws closer to his mother, he picks up movement in his periphery and recognizes the broad man that steps out of the shadows, the brim of his hat pulled low over his face.

  
“Hi, Da,” Eames says softly, tension melting out of his muscles in a rush.

  
Owen McCullough smiles at his son with the side of his mouth that still moves and automatically takes the free hand his wife offers him once they come even with her. The little boy looks at Eames shyly from beneath his messy, platinum curls and Eames is hit immediately with how much this child reminds him of Mal and Arthur. He hadn’t even known Mal had been pregnant again.

  
The four of them leave the platform, blending with the crowd despite the individual ways they stand out. When he glances back, Eames can see Fischer looking about wildly, trying to find him before he can disappear now that Fischer’s successfully extricated himself from Ariadne, but it’s too late. The truck his parents lead him to is newer than the last one, and Eames is satisfied to know that they accepted his gifts. He didn’t want to insult his mother by re-gifting her money that was by rights hers anyway, but he needed to repay his parents for everything they’d ever done somehow.

  
“So who is this?” Eames asks as he and Owen load his bags into the bed of the truck, jerking his head at the drowsy toddler in his mother’s arms.

  
“Ah, that there is King James,” Owen says fondly, reaching out to tousle the boy’s downy curls. James smiles sleepily and grabs for Owen’s hand with his own tiny fingers. It’s a striking juxtaposition – James’s fresh and perfect skin against the knots of ruined flesh covering Owen’s bones.

  
Suddenly Eames positively aches with the need to see Arthur, reminded of the way Owen used to rest a guiding hand on _his_ head, more sympathetic than anyone to the way Arthur viewed the world. Owen raised Arthur as much as he raised his own son, even though Arthur had such a large family, he’d always toddled after Eames and Owen when Mal was too busy being impressive, and Owen had always welcomed Arthur along.

  
“Is he Mal’s?” Eames asks, voice hoarse.

  
“Aye. Pippa was only two.”

  
Vivienne kisses James’s head and tickles him until he giggles, the sadness in her face masked to the baby by her brilliant smile. “She loved him so much, but she was lost after James was born and she couldn’t come back from it.”

  
Eames feels hollow inside, but he’s saved from continuing this line of conversation by Ariadne’s hesitant appearance outside of the depot. He hails her over and she smiles, dragging just one bag behind her. Once she gets close enough, Eames waits anticipatorily for her to notice Owen. Her reaction will mean a lot. Eames thinks he’s gauged enough of her personality in the last few days to expect what she’ll do but she could still surprise him.

  
“Oh!” She gasps upon reaching their group, her eyes wide but not with horror. She sticks her hand straight out to Owen just like she’d done to Eames on the night they met and says, “You’re the Man with no Face!”

  
She’s so excited she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, trying to be taller.

  
“Aye, that’s my stage name, lassie, but right now you can just call me Owen.” Ariadne’s smile then is brilliant and Eames is as proud of her as ever. He’s happy he found this little stray. She’ll make an amazing addition to their ragtag family.

  
“Mum, Da, Ariadne has come to us by way of Professor Cobb.”

  
Owen smiles his lopsided smile and winks at her. “Saito’ll be waitin’ for you then. Best be gettin’ you to camp afore he gets impatient. They call him the Dragon, you know, and it’s not because he’s Japanese,” he whispers conspiratorially in her ear, making her gasp and giggle.

  
With help from his father, Eames hauls himself into the bed of the truck where they brace themselves amongst the bags for the road ahead. Ariadne climbs into the cab with Vivienne and takes James into her lap where he immediately falls asleep, head pillowed on her breast, like she’s not a stranger at all. Owen claps a hand to his son’s shoulder and squeezes, watching Eames’s face fondly with his one good, blue eye.

  
“Welcome home, Ireland,” he says before the rumble of the truck’s engine drowns everything out.

  
Eames spends the ride dreamily watching the countryside blur past, the wind tugging his hair loose from its careful style. It’s grown out since the Navy, but he’s never let it get as long as he’d worn it as a youth. Now it’s neat, if severe, and stylishly en vogue. He doesn’t look any different than any other man on any given city street and that’s how he likes it. But now it’s blowing in his face, strands whipping his eyelids and cheeks and he’ll no doubt look a mess when they arrive at their destination, hair tangled and cheeks windblown ruddy, but as the anticipation in his heart grows, there’s not enough room left for him to care about his appearance.

  
He first takes note of the colorful specks in the distance, the tents too far away for their shapes to be made out, but their vibrant hues too loud to blend in with the barren land around them. He peeks at Ariadne through the truck’s back window and she’s beaming, practically bouncing with excitement, James still sleeping unaware in her lap. Eames squirms so that he can have a better look at what’s coming up in front of them, uncaring if his father notices the slip in his carefully affected demeanor of nonchalance. He’s not going to put on airs for his family. He’s not going to waste the precious time.

  
As the truck slows, clouds of dust billow up around the tires, obscuring Eames’s view, but he’s only looking for one thing, one person in particular. When Eames sees him, something electric explodes in his chest and he would bound over the side of the still moving truck and run if he could, but he settles for a tight grip on the metal and a dry throat. He’s not sure how everyone knew they were coming when he hadn’t responded to Arthur’s letter and hadn’t even told his parents. He wasn’t surprised to see them at the station and isn’t surprised to see everyone gathered at the edge of the campground, waiting, because he knows there is magic that can’t be explained away by sleight of hand and trickery, and he’ll never know how it works. The Inception is full of such magic and Ireland Eames McCullough was born into it.

  
Arthur is crouched, when the truck finally stops, using just one hand to brace a little girl as she walks the edge of the makeshift road on her hands. She comes down onto her tiny feet at the sound of the truck and looks to Arthur for approval which he gives to her in spades. Eames can see her face clearly and she’s impossibly lovely, the only thing about her that doesn’t immediately kick Eames in the gut and remind of Mal being her long honey blonde hair. _Pippa_ his father had called her and she looks like a Pippa now, such a sweet and pretty little thing. Eames thinks her hair will darken as she gets older and grows into the name Phillipa and when she does, he thinks, she’ll look almost too much like Mal.

  
Arthur rises slowly, one hand on Phillipa’s head, still guiding her even though she’s standing, like he’s wary to let her run without reigns, but his eyes are on the truck, on _Eames_ , and even though he isn’t quite smiling, seems almost too tired to try, his eyes are warm and wide and there’s a smile hidden deep within them, just for Eames. Arthur bends down and says something to the girl and she nods and runs off and it’s only then that Eames notices Dom sitting on the steps to his caravan, shoulders hunched and his head buried in his hands. He looks up when his daughter reaches him and manages a weak smile for her and Eames is contented to see him fold the little girl into his arms. After everything Eames has heard from Fischer, it’s selfishly reassuring to see that Dom Cobb loves his children even if he may be too broken to care for them properly on his own.

  
But the truth of it is Eames _is_ inherently selfish and his eyes are back on Arthur almost immediately without another thought for Dom Cobb, because the sight of Arthur is like a balm to his heart which he hadn’t realized was so severely broken. Arthur’s twenty-three now, though he doesn’t look much older than he did at eighteen, at least not in his face which is still sweetly youthful and devoid of any lines. That in itself is magic of a sort since Eames is certain he still frowns more than anything, especially now. Arthur’s maturity shows in the way he holds himself rather than his physical appearance. His shoulders are a little broader than Eames remembers and he stands a little taller, taller than Eames, and there’s an obvious weight on his back but it isn’t dragging him down. Arthur’s sad, of course he is, and he’s clearly tired, but he’s strong, stronger than Eames has ever given him proper credit for, stronger than Eames by far. And he’s lovely, still so lovely, wearing clothes Eames sent him and looking better than Eames had ever imagined.

  
It’s as if time stands still as they just look at each other for the first time in five years. Eames needs this moment, these few too-short minutes to drink in the sight of the young man before him. He’d never thought to take a photo and he’s been living off newspaper clippings and old flyers that felt like cheating, and his own blurred memories of all the secret smiles he’s saved. None of that could compare to the reality, which is like oxygen after years of holding his breath.

  
Inevitably the moment is shattered by shouts of welcome and the movement of men at the truck, grabbing his bags and depositing them on the ground. Ariadne’s excited shout is the final straw that drags his gaze away from Arthur to see her beaming face not just even with the edge of the truck. It’s more difficult to get out of the truck bed than it was to get in, but then Arthur is at his side and easing him down, his strength always a surprise when paired with the litheness of his body. But Eames also moves easier this close to him, almost as if his hip doesn’t hurt quite as much if Arthur’s touching him, but Eames doesn’t forget himself, and he doesn’t fall into Arthur’s arms like a swooning damsel.

  
“Ariadne, this is Arthur Petrov,” he says, wrapping his arm around Ariadne’s slight shoulders. He can’t say that Arthur is part of the Petrov Doves because they no longer exist, but he can’t bring himself to call Arthur “The Mourning Dove” either, whether the world has chosen that moniker or not. To him, Arthur will only ever be his Darling Dove and that, like so much else between them, is his - and only his - to keep.

  
“Pleased to meet you,” Ariadne says, less star struck than when she had met Owen, or perhaps aware enough not to mention the Doves either.

  
“Likewise,” Arthur says, voice definitely deeper than it had been five years ago and Eames has to remove his arm from Ariadne’s shoulder lest she feel the shiver the timbre of Arthur’s voice sends down his spine. Arthur smiles for Ariadne, but Eames doesn’t feel any envy because it’s not one of _his_ , Arthur’s just being polite. 

 

Ariadne glances at Eames, as if to check that she’s done the right thing by not acting like an overwhelmed child and he smiles and nods at her, pleased.

  
“Miss Ariadne I presume,” a calm but authoritative voice interrupts and Ariadne immediately looks away, suddenly visibly nervous.

  
“That’s me,” she says quietly, but she throws her shoulders back and looks straight up at the man speaking to her, something even the most veteran circus performers are sometimes too scared to do.

  
Saito smiles warmly at her and she calms and smiles back taking the elbow he offers her. “I am Saito. Welcome to my circus. I’ve been expecting you.”

 

 

 

That night Eames is lying on his back in the very same tent that he shared with Arthur for nearly a decade and a half, rolling the little gold ring back and forth over his knuckles in the dark.

  
“What is that?” Arthur asks, lying down beside him. He makes a grab for the object, but Eames closes his fingers around the ring before Arthur can get it and when he opens them the ring is gone and his palm is empty.

  
“Not fair,” Arthur pouts, crossing his arms over his chest and rolling away from the warmth of Eames’s body.

  
Eames chuckles and flicks his wrist and the ring reappears, balancing on its edge on the back of his hand. Arthur smirks and snatches it, then holds it up to his eye so that he can see it better with so little light. “What… Eames…”

  
Eames’s heart flutters like a nervous bird in his chest and he resolutely stares at the top of the tent as if trying to see the stars through the canvas.

  
“ _Eames_ , is it… Is it for me?” Arthur sounds almost tentative, as if it could possibly be for anyone else.

  
“Bought it five years ago,” he says instead of anything more concrete and incriminating.

 

“For me?” Arthur’s voice gets softer, less questioning, more wonderful. 

 

“Of course it’s for you, darling,” Eames mumbles gruffly.

  
“Of course,” Arthur murmurs and slips the ring onto his finger, curling into Eames and laying his ear over Eames’s heart. “I missed you.”

  
“And I you, darling, with every beat of my heart,” Eames curls his hand around Arthur’s where its laying on his stomach, brushes his thumb over the warmed metal around Arthur’s ring finger.

  
“Sap,” Arthur snorts and attempts to burrow further into Eames’s body and the blankets they’re lying on.

  
“Arthur…” Eames keeps his voice soft and low, soothing. He doesn’t know how to bring Mal up without awkwardness, but he knows he must.

  
It’s obvious how heavy Mal’s death is weighing on her husband and her children, but he’s not sure who’s taken the time to wonder how it’s weighing on her twin brother, the person who’s always needed her most. His sisters are all older with their own families and mourning their baby sister as well. And from just what Eames has seen tonight, Arthur’s kept his chin up. He’s stayed strong, for Dom, for Mal’s children, for _everyone_ else. If Arthur is going to get special treatment, it’s going to be from Eames. That’s how it’s always been.

  
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.” Arthur presses his face into Eames’s chest, like he did as a boy with rope-burned palms and silent tears asking for Eames to make it better.

  
“ _Darling_ ,” Eames tries again, whispering against the top of Arthur’s head, breathing in the scent of his pomade, not quite washed out. “I loved her too.”

  
Arthur’s shoulders shake on a silent sob and with his other arm, Eames pulls him close, holds him tight. “She was so selfish. She just left us all behind. She left _me_ behind.”

  
“Shhh Arthur. It’s alright, darling, it’s alright.” It’s so familiar, holding Arthur like this, pretending to be calmer than he feels because Arthur needs him to. Eames needed to go, needed to get out and figure himself out, but he was foolish to believe he’d make a home anywhere else. Maybe if Arthur had agreed to come with him that night eight years ago, but otherwise, he should have known he’d come back for good eventually. His place is at Arthur’s side, keeping Arthur strong at the same time that Arthur keeps him humble. “It was an accident, darling. Just an unfortunate accident.”

  
“No, Eames. No, it wasn’t. Mal wouldn’t _fall_.”

  
Eames feels cold suddenly. “Did Dom –“

  
“ _No,_ ” Arthur hisses. “Dom didn’t push her. That’s ridiculous.”  
  
“But were you there? If you didn’t see, how could you know?”

  
Arthur lifts his head, his eyes red and cheeks visibly tear-stained even in the dark. “Would _you_ push _me_?”

  
“Arthur… Arthur that isn’t the same-“

  
“They burned up like a diesel fire and you and I burn like a candle, slow but bright, that’s the only difference… the intensity of the flame. You told me once that Mal’s head was full of butterflies and you were right. Dom didn’t push her, Eames. He couldn’t do that. He’s hardly surviving without her.”

  
“So she jumped, then.”

  
“You don’t know what it’s like up there, the rush of defying gravity. It’s exhilarating. When I was little, really little, my favorite thing in the world was when you’d practice your tricks for me, like I was the most important audience you could perform for. Every trick you did, even the simplest ones were all magic to me. I thought everything you did was amazing. The first time I got to fly, to actually _fly_ , flip through the air with nothing to catch me should I miss my mark, I felt like I’d finally done something amazing. I’d performed my _own_ magic. There’s nothing like it. The adrenaline pumps through my veins and time slows down around me and everything seems clearer and more beautiful.

  
“Mal felt the same way. She told me so many times. After they started calling us the Doves, Mal told me that she wished she really was a dove so that she’d never have to stop flying. As we got older, she felt less and less right on the ground and she stopped talking about it, but I could still see it in her eyes. I thought once she found Dom, it would get better, that she’d be able to get that same rush from being in love, because that’s what you did for me. You made me feel like I was flying all the time except that I knew if I fell, I wouldn’t hit the ground because you’d catch me. Even after you left, I knew you’d always be there to catch me even if it was just in my dreams. You were like my net, you know? I didn’t get lost in that dizzy feeling because you kept me tethered to the ground.

  
“But Mal, she didn’t want to be tethered. She didn’t want anyone to catch her. She just wanted to fly.”

  
Arthur’s voice breaks on the last word and he lowers his head again, pressing his face into Eames’s chest. Eames can feel Arthur’s tears on his skin and he squeezes Arthur’s hand and holds him tight, rocking with the violent shaking of Arthur’s frame as he releases weeks if not years of repressed emotions.

  
“I’m here, Arthur,” he whispers into Arthur’s hair. “I’m here now. I’ve got you. I’ll always be here to catch you.”

 

The show must go on. Without a show there is no audience and without an audience there is no income, no scratch in the kitty. There are mouths to feed, human and animal, and though there is still a sense of loss, a gaping hole in the heart of the circus where Mal should be, they wrap themselves in sequined armor, shellac their hair and line their eyes, and they get ready to perform without her.

  
Arthur teaches Ariadne the basics of the tightrope and though she’ll never be Mal, she learns quickly and she’s dedicated. Vivienne alters one of Arthur’s old costumes for her and from the stands, she looks like she belongs and she does. In a few years, when she’s had more time and practice, Ariadne will do brilliant things, Eames is sure of it.

  
Eames spends hours sewing sequins by candlelight, turning Arthur’s costume into something darker than it had been, something that will make him seem a part of the shadows, something that will make him shimmer and shine and will draw the audience’s eyes to his body but allow him to fade away without distraction when his routine is finished. Arthur will dance on the edge of the spotlight in a shimmer of violet and sapphire and onyx. Without Mal, the story has changed, less a visual ballad of the battle between good and evil than it is a story of loss and despair and, ultimately, redemption.

  
There are several instances, when Eames is standing in the center of the ring watching Arthur guide Ariadne across the rope that he thinks he sees a figure in the shadows, waiting for the trapeze to swing its way. The shade always disappears when Eames tries to look directly at it, but he doesn’t think he’s imagining things, not with the way  
Dom shudders and stares every time like he’s seen it too. Dom can’t stay in the tent for longer than is necessary, always running out as soon as they call rehearsals, hugging and kissing his children as if they’re the only things keeping him anchored in reality. It’s a terrible thing and makes him ill to think, but Eames is certain that if it weren’t for the children, Dom would have taken a flying leap after his wife.

  
Things come together like well-oiled gears and cogs. There has been tragedy within the circus before and there will be again, and the performers are professionals, this is their livelihood, and they can act as if nothing at all has changed their dynamic. Mal is gone but everyone else is still there and thus, they move forward and perform like it is second nature, like it’s as automatic as breathing.

 

“What is the most important thing I’ve ever taught you, Ireland?” Owen asks him one day as they brush the wolves’ coats until they shine like they did when Eames was young.

  
“Sleight of hand,” Eames responds, distracted by Odin’s pups nipping at his fingertips. They’re just old enough to be weaned from their mother’s milk, all but one of them black as night like Odin.

  
James has already claimed the runt of the litter as his own and whenever anyone takes their eyes off of him, he can easily be found asleep amongst the wolves, his arms around the albino pup that he’s named Merlin, after his favorite character from the stories that Owen tells him every night to put him to sleep. James doesn’t talk much like his uncle, but the delight that the stories bring him can be seen in his angelic face and that they distract him from wondering when his mother is coming home. Nobody has questioned that Merlin will belong to James, who isn’t old enough to understand that his mother is never coming home.

  
“Aye, that’s a good thing to know, but it isn’t the most important thing.”

  
“To always be aware of my surroundings?” Eames tries again, watching Odin mind his progeny with a wary eye.

  
“Dream bigger, my boy,” Owen urges, coming to sit beside his son and hefting a wriggling Merlin into his lap.

  
“Then I dunno, Da.” Eames spots Arthur chasing an ungainly James across the camp, smiling for all the world to see as he pretends to let the toddler gain ground on him every time he comes close. James’s shrieks of delight can be heard well over the din of the daily bustle. Eames’s eyes follow Arthur’s every movement until Owen begins to chuckle and Eames catches himself, blushing deeply.

  
“Magic, Ireland. That is what I have taught you.”

  
Eames looks at his father with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Like tricks?”

  
“Everything, son. Haven’t I taught you that magic is real, that it’s all around us? Haven’t I taught you to see magic in all things?”

  
Eames thinks of the magic he can feel in his bones, the tricks he can do, his skills with a brush, the docile nature of the animals he’s grown up next to, the light in the smiles of an audience, _Arthur_. It is all magic of some kind or another and his father has taught him that even the smallest, simplest trick might still bring wonder to someone. Like the way Arthur lived to watch Eames perform when they were boys, even a sparkle in the eye of a child is a kind of magic trick.

  
“Sure, Da. I know all that. What’re you reminding me of it for?”

  
“Don’t you think it’s about time you made some magic of your own, son? This isn’t the same show I helped ta build, not without all its players. The Inception, she’s changin’, adaptin’, growin’. It’s your turn to make her magic, Ireland. You’re the magician of this circus, my boy, not me.”

  
“What are you sayin’, Da?” Eames asks, nerves fluttering in his belly. Owen smiles when Eames turns to face him, only just noticing the object Owen is holding away from Merlin’s sharp baby teeth.

  
“Your mother and I have been at this for a long time. We’ve traveled the world but we’ve never really seen it, do you understand? The Inception has always held a place for you, Ireland, she’s always just been waitin’ for you to come to your senses and come home. You’ve always had magic in you, now it’s time you show the world just how much. I’m tired of performing and you were born to do it. You’ll be greater than I ever was, son.”

  
There are tears in Eames’s eyes when Owen places the satin top hat on his head where it fits like it’s never sat upon another man’s brow. His father is right, everything is changing, the world is changing and they have to change with it or be left behind. He looks up to meet Arthur’s eyes when he and James finally burst into the wolf pen, Owen already scooping both boy and pup into his arms with a deep-chested chuckle. Arthur smiles and offers his hand to help pull Eames to his feet and then adjusts the top hat so that it sits straight, his lips only a breath away from Eames’s.

  
“She’s our circus now, isn’t she?” Arthur asks and Eames just nods.

  
Arthur has been and will be the star of the Inception for a very long time to come, but now Eames will be able to hold that title alongside him as more than just the magician’s son, but as the magician himself. He links his arm with Arthur’s and grabs the cane he’s begun walking with again, knowing no one in his large and unconventional family will see it as a weakness, by the black jade handle carved to look like a howling wolf. He feels a pang of regret for Mal and nostalgia for his parents, but above all he is happy and ready to fulfill the role he was always meant to play.

 

 

…Epilogue…

  
Agent Robert Fischer is well past angry and on his way to livid by the time he gives up on the town he’s been residing in and resolves to begin searching for Ira Eames. Eames has eluded him again and with him, Robert has lost Dom Cobb as well. His face is set in a permanent scowl as he pushes his way through the town’s tiny square, determined to at least get a proper cup of coffee in this country before he gives up on everything. He steps on a piece of paper left lying in the middle of the cobble stone street and curses when it sticks to his shoe, but when he peels it away, a smile finds its way to his face. It’s a flyer for the Inception and though it’s dirty and a little smudged, he can easily make out the date of the first show. Robert folds up the piece of paper and slips it into his pocket, suddenly feeling like a new man. He might even whistle as he walks back to his rented room.

  
The setup of the Inception is even more impressive than he’d first imagined, and Robert Fischer is at first ashamed that he was unable to find something of this magnitude for so long. He’s soon overwhelmed by the colors and the smells, the scent of animal dung overpowered by the mouthwatering aromas of popped corn and spun sugar. He weaves his way through the crowds and purchases a ticket, keeping his eyes open for Eames or Cobb. Eames had told him that he’d only make it here if the circus itself had something it wanted him to see. Robert is far too pragmatic to believe such a thing, but being here, on the grounds, his resolve begins to waver.

  
He mills around, trying not to look suspicious as he waits for the tent flaps to open and the show to begin. He doesn’t stick out from the crowd full of men and women and children in their Sunday best, come to the show to escape the reality of their lives, the aftermath of the war and the uncertainty of the future. Robert tries not to startle when he nearly gets caught in the path of a line of elephants, their trunks linked to the tail of the pachyderm in front of them. An Indian man sits cross-legged on the head of the lead elephant, turban steady on his head even as he leans over to smile and wave at Robert like he knows him. Robert hesitates but he finds himself automatically waving back. He doesn’t catch sight of either of his targets before the crowd is being ushered into the tent and he’s forced to take a seat.

  
The lights dim and then brighten and music starts to play from a source that Robert can’t see. The elephants enter the tent, still in a line, the Indian man still perched precariously atop the lead animal’s head. He waves to the crowd and they wave back, and Robert begins to feel actual excitement despite himself. The elephants are followed, illogically, by a pride of lions, a female in the front with a pink bow around her neck prancing ahead of the rest like she enjoys the attention. Once those animals are well into the tent, the man gives some cue to the elephant and she raises her trunk so that he can stand on it and be safely lowered to the ground. The audience cheers and the female lion trots up to him, butting her head against his hip like a housecat looking to have her belly rubbed. The man walks to the center of the ring and his animals follow, the elephants climbing onto raised platforms all around the edge, alternately standing on either their fore or hind feet.

  
The man produces several hoops that he sets up around the ring at varying heights, the center one of which he sets on fire. Almost immediately the lions begin to hop through the hoops without a command or the crack of a whip to spur them, using platforms or strategically placed trampolines to aid them, all but the female lion who sits patiently by the tamer’s side. Robert catches himself leaning towards the spectacle like an excited child and immediately clears his throat and sits back. But then all of the lions have gone through the hoops and the female almost preens as she trots to the beginning and runs through it herself, the only difference being that at the very end, when the other lions had dropped from the course to the ground and left the tent, she leaps from one platform, through the burning hoop and lands on another platform, her bow not even singed. The lioness practically eats up the applause as the elephants come out of their stances and the lead behemoth hefts the tamer again with her trunk. Robert finds himself clapping along as the animals file out of the tent, the lioness looking almost smug as the last one to leave.

  
Immediately the music picks up again and a man makes his way into the center ring on a chariot pulled by tigers. He is Japanese, dressed in a black suit with a white shirt resembling a closed kimono beneath it and Robert knows almost immediately that this is Saito, the owner and ringmaster.

  
“Welcome all,” Saito begins, his voice deep and soothing even as it fills the tent. “I am Saito and this is the Inception! What is an inception, you may ask? Inception is the birth of an idea, the very first instant when a thought becomes something even greater. The Inception is pure creation, ever growing, ever evolving until it cannot be forgotten!”

  
There are cheers and applause Robert holds his breath, entranced.

  
“Many of you may be aware that we have suffered a great tragedy recently. The loss of one of our performers has saddened us greatly, but she wouldn’t want the show to end! The Inception was her life and she the star, and she would want the show to continue in her honor! Tonight we perform for Amelie Petrov, our lost Dove.”

  
The lights flicker as Saito speaks and Robert’s gaze is drawn to the highest platform in the darkest corner where the trapeze waits for someone to grasp it. He gasps as he swears he sees the shadow of a woman on the platform, but no one around him seems to notice and when he looks again it’s gone. But when he looks back to the ring, Saito has finished speaking and is on his way out while a weary and ragged looking Dom Cobb sneaks in, his eyes trained on the spot Robert had just been watching, as if he’d seen the figure too. Robert would know Dom Cobb anywhere, even this broken and worn down specimen.

  
Robert’s gaze is caught by another shadow, this one mimicking Cobb’s movements on the tightrope, this one meant to be seen. This is Arthur Petrov, he realizes, as the shadowy, shimmering figure moves lightly across the thin rope, no hesitance at all even though he’s just lost his sister to the very same act. He’s utterly beautiful, slinking out of the shadows like he’s a part of them. The character that Dom Cobb is playing watches the figure fearfully until the sound of a child’s laughter breaks his concentration. Robert looks away to see a little girl and boy huddled together just out of the spotlight, but when Cobb races toward them, they disappear. Robert gasps along with the crowd, his eyes darting back to the acrobat immediately- The Mourning Dove.

  
He pulls himself from the tightrope to a higher platform, the one on which the shade had been before, and grasps the trapeze with both hands before swinging himself off and into the open air without a moment’s hesitation or concern. The man swings himself into a seated position on the bar and falls back, hanging by his legs. Robert is surprised when another body swings into view and the man is pulled from the bar by a tiny woman in similar costume. It takes a moment for Robert to realize there is an entire troupe of them up there, all of the Petrovs but one, helping the Mourning Dove to flip and twirl through the air without letting him fall. When the spectacle ends and Arthur finds his way back to the tightrope, Robert’s lungs burn for the lack of oxygen and he suddenly wishes he’d been able to see the Petrov Doves in all of their proper glory.

  
The man wraps himself in a column of sheer cloth that has unfurled from the top of the tent, allowing himself to hang upside down and reach for Dom Cobb, who tries mightily from the ground to grasp Arthur’s hand. But Arthur’s desperately longing creature is foiled by the sudden entrance of a young girl dressed all in white, tiptoeing out onto the tightrope, beckoning to Cobb, distracting him from the shade’s pull. Robert instantly recognizes her as the girl who’d bumped into him on the train platform and kept him from following Eames. He can’t help but smile at that, not as bitter as he should be at Eames’s evasion tactics.

  
Robert thinks Cobb is going to follow the girl, but the children appear again suddenly, on the other side of the ring, still ignorant of Cobb’s desperation to get to them. The sound of thunder jolts everyone in their seats and the audience is unprepared for the lights to go out and for the entire tent to fill with smoke and the howls of wolves. When the lights come back up, dimmer than before, Robert sees the magician at the center of the ring surrounded by several snapping canines, a devious smile playing about his lush lips when he takes his velvet clad arms away from his face. His eyes are blue and cunning beneath his top hat and he gestures with a gold and jade cane instead of a wand. Eames picks Robert out of the crowd and points to him with the cane as if to say that he knows Robert is there and he isn’t afraid. Arthur still twirls above him, his vest and leggings matched to Eames’s violet topcoat. Arthur twists so that he’s again hanging upside down, reaching this time for the magician, spinning ever faster as the music gets louder and Cobb tries to escape the snapping jaws of the wolves. Then, with a flash, Eames raises his cane and brings it down suddenly and the acrobat disappears. The crowd gasps and applauds and Robert looks all over but Arthur is gone. Cobb scrambles out of the way and the wolves proceed to do tricks of their own, hopping from platform to platform and walking on their hind legs, their front paws level with the top of Eames’s hat.

  
Eames steps through a random door brought into the center of the ring only to reappear on the tightrope. He covers his body with a black sheet and when it falls, he is gone and there are ravens in his place. Eames reappears in the center, drawing attention with a pop and a plume of smoke and then he makes the wolves disappear one by one until there is only one left. The wolf, large and black and probably the pack’s alpha, hops onto a platform and nudges Eames’s shoulder with his head. Eames kisses the animal between the eyes and then taps it on the back with his cane. The wolf lies down and rests its head on its paws and when it stands again, its pelt slips away to reveal Arthur crouching on the platform. The audience goes wild with excitement and Robert rises with the wave of people to offer the magician a standing ovation. Eames finds Robert’s gaze and nods, tipping the brim of his top hat as Arthur climbs onto his shoulders and uses Eames to boost himself onto the ladder that ascends to the tightrope.

  
The rest of the performance goes by in a blur for Robert, who’s beginning to understand just how this little show could have such a large impact on so many people. He sees now why the performers in the circus have becomes so famous, why a man like Ira Eames, on whom Robert never had anything but a desperate bluff, would give up a life of luxury to come back and be a part of this. Robert feels changed as he watches the little girl in white guide Cobb away from the shadows, away from Arthur Petrov’s haunting shade and Eames’s terrifyingly questionable reality, until the girl feigns cutting the rope keeping Arthur aloft and he spins and spins, his cloth wrapping unraveling until he stops just inches from the ground to the collective gasps of the audience. Arthur untangles himself and bows then proceeds to do a series of handsprings until he’s out of the tent.

  
The children are brought into the tent on the back of the lioness and Cobb eagerly catches them up, swinging them around and planting loving kisses on their cheeks. These are Cobb’s real children, Robert realizes as the show comes to a close, and he very clearly loves them. As the rest of the performers file back into the tent to take their bows, Robert wonders about what he’s seen and whether Eames was right, and there _is_ real magic in the Inception. He doesn’t think Dom Cobb pushed his wife from the tightrope, because the man is too broken and lifeless without her. He also thinks there _is_ a chance that Nash fired the shots that killed Cobol and disappeared into the wind, leaving Dom Cobb as just an unfortunate witness to a petty crime. That’s what he’ll put in his file on Cobb anyway, when he officially closes Cobol’s case.

  
Robert Fischer hesitates at the edge of the midway before he goes to his rented car and watches the performers slowly appear from behind the tent, still in their costumes. He waits until he sees Eames emerge, still in his top hat and overcoat, now using the cane to aid himself as he walks, his free hand clasped tightly in the hand of Arthur Petrov, who doesn’t see Robert because his heavy gaze is glued to Eames. Eames only takes his own eyes off of Arthur when he feels Robert watching him and he raises an eyebrow, silently asking what next. Robert only gives Eames his own smile and tips the brim of his fedora, conceding this round to the magician’s son.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks go to adelaide_rain for the beta. I put a lot into this fic and she helped me wrangle it into something other people might be able to understand and that could not have been easy. And phenylic for telling me to stay on track when guerilla plot bunnies tried to take over my brain. And SO MUCH LOVE to chezvous for taking my words and capturing the emotions I tried so hard to convey with wonderful songs and [BEAUTIFUL art!!](http://birdsdown.livejournal.com/4618.html)


End file.
